Vigilante Tendency
by Kyogre
Summary: Complete, semi-AU. There's such a thing as being too much like the 1st generation. Tsuna didn't mean to start a vigilante group, but somehow it happened anyway. Well done, "Neo Primo," well done.
1. Sunny

~.~.~

**Title:** Vigilante Tendency

**Summary:** There's such a thing as being too much like the 1st generation. Tsuna didn't mean to start a vigilante group, but somehow it happened anyway. Well done, "Neo Primo," well done.

**Notes:** Edited 5/24/2013

~.~.~

In some ways, Tsuna was entirely too much like his honorable ancestor, Sawada Ieyasu, nee Giotto, once Vongola Primo, and once just an ordinary boy who one day decided to start a vigilante group.

Or more precisely, one day he got forced into starting a vigilante group by his very pushy friends.

Tsuna didn't exactly mean to start a vigilante group either, but no one asked his opinion on the matter. His friends were very pushy too.

Very "extreme," you might say.

~.~.~

It started like this.

There was a girl in Tsuna's class that was like the sun. In Tsuna's opinion.

Her name was Sasagawa Kyoko. She smiled at him every morning and helped him up when he tripped. When he skinned his knee, again, she placed a band-aide with sunflowers on it and kissed his cheek.

Tsuna was in love.

So when he saw Kyoko get dragged away on her way home, by some boys from the local middle school, Tsuna knew he had to be a man like his useless dad was always telling him.

But even as he gathered all his courage, Tsuna didn't really know what to do. Trying to think of something, anything, he followed after them, clutching at the straps of his backpack.

"We're gonna show that punk!" they were laughing among themselves. "We'll teach him not to mess with us!"

The him in question arrived shortly — Kyoko's older brother, Ryohei.

"Onii-san!" Kyoko cried out, tears of fear in her eyes.

"You better take your beating quietly, you brat, or the girl gets it," one of the older boys threatened, shaking Kyoko and making her cry out.

Ryohei howled something derogatory as two of the middle schoolers made their way toward him, but Tsuna wasn't listening. This was it. This was the moment to act. Even if his legs were shaking so badly he could barely stand, Tsuna charged at the older boy still holding Kyoko.

Slipping his school bag off his shoulders, Tsuna swung it with all his might. Filled with books and notes, it hit the bully in the chest with enough force to knock the breath from his lungs and startle him into releasing Kyoko.

"Run!" Tsuna yelled, even as the middle schooler he had attacked recovered enough to lunge for Tsuna instead, growling angrily. "Run, Kyoko-chan!"

With tears in her eyes, Kyoko ran.

Seeing his sister escape, Ryohei was all too happy to give as good as he got. He still got quite a beating and a new scar to show for it, but he was remarkably cheerful as he pulled an equally bruised and battered Tsuna to his feet.

"That was very extreme of you!" Ryohei praised him, ruffling Tsuna's hair. "When I start a boxing club, you can be the first member!"

~.~.~

Kyoko patched them up afterwards, still sniffling a little, but determined to help however she could. She had also, wisely, gone to get an adult, who was all too happy to bring some justice down on the three middle school students who had thought beating up two kids was a good way to spend their time.

"I told you fighting is bad, Onii-san," she scolded her brother.

"Sometimes a man has to fight, to protect what he loves," Tsuna mumbled. It was another of his useless dad's comments, but at the moment Tsuna was feeling a bit more charitable toward the man than usual.

Even if he had gotten beaten up, at least Kyoko was talking to him. So maybe there was something to all that "a man must be brave and bold!" stuff Iemitsu liked to spout so much.

"That right! You said it, Sawada!" Ryohei agreed. "It's okay, Kyoko. I promise, from now on, I'll only fight to protect!"

Kyoko huffed, a little bit of red tinging her cheeks as she glanced at Tsuna. She didn't protest any further.

She ran out of sunflower band-aides before they were through, but she gave Tsuna some nice lion-print ones instead, and a smile that shone like the sun.

~.~.~

"This town used to shine like the sun!" Giotto said, long ago. That was his reason for fighting.

Overall, it seemed like having too much sun involved led to these kinds of situations. Sunny, with a chance of vigilantism.

~.~.~

Tsuna would have been happy to leave it at that — sharing lunch with Kyoko at school, working together whenever they needed a partner, having Ryohei walk them both home, filling the air with his energetic chatter.

Except that Ryohei now thought of Tsuna as his comrade in arms, or something. A fellow man, bound together by the unbreakable tie of having gotten beaten up together. So one otherwise peaceful day, Ryohei suddenly appeared during lunch and, without so much as a word of explanation, dragged Tsuna off.

"Onii-san! Wait! What's going on?" Tsuna protested, struggling to keep up with Ryohei's long — for a kid — strides.

"I saw some guys from two classes up doing some really unextreme things in the courtyard!" Ryohei explained. "We're going to stop them Sawada!"

"Wait, why am I involved?" Tsuna whimpered.

They had reached the courtyard, where Tsuna could see a group of older boys crowding around something — or rather someone, curled up on the ground in a fetal position.

Ryohei turned to face Tsuna, clapping his hands on the younger boy's shoulders and looking him straight in the eye. "Because we are extreme men," he said gravely, as if that was some kind of explanation.

Then, with a roar, he charged at the bullies.

Tsuna didn't bother even trying to help. He couldn't fight at all, and Ryohei was more than a match for a few elementary school kids. Instead, Tsuna hurried over to the unfortunate victim. It was a boy about Tsuna's age or maybe a year older, with short red-brown hair and dark eyes. He was trying to hold together a pair of broken glasses and clutching something to his chest.

"Come on, let's get out of here," Tsuna said, helping him to his feet.

~.~.~

Kyoko had, again, wisely, gone to get a teacher. Then, with a sigh, she pulled out her first aid supplies and began to patch up their rescuee's wounds, which were fortunately largely superficial.

His name was Irie Shoichi and he was a year above Kyoko and Tsuna, though in a different class than Ryohei. He liked robots and machines in general, and was rather smart, which got him in trouble with the bullies. Usually, he just went along with whatever they wanted, like Tsuna tended to, but this time they had wanted to take away the new robot he had brought with him, and Shoichi just couldn't let that happened.

It was, he explained, very expensive and sent to him from overseas by his online friend.

"Thank you, really," Shoichi said, pushing up the glasses they had mostly managed to tape back together. "I don't know what I would've done if you hadn't helped me."

"We were extremely happy to do it!" Ryohei yelled, pumping his fist in the air. Tsuna just cringed away, more than a little embarrassed by the whole situation. At least Shoichi's gratitude softened Kyoko's own annoyance at them for getting into another fight.

"Do you… make a habit of this?" Shoichi asked. "Fighting bullies and stuff?"

"No, we really don't," Tsuna tried to say.

"Yes!" Ryohei called out loudly, completely drowning out Tsuna's reply. "That is an extreme idea! We will extremely do that!"

"Onii-san!" Kyoko protested.

"We will protect the other kids, Kyoko!" Ryohei insisted. "Isn't that a good thing?"

"Well, I suppose…" Kyoko agreed, uncertainly.

Shoichi glanced down at the robot in his arms and, swallowing heavily, seemed to come to a decision. "I'll help too," he said. "I can't fight, but I'll help in any way I can."

"Extreme!" Ryohei hollered.

And that's how it began.

Notably, no one asked Tsuna's opinion.

~.~.~

Namimori was a small town. There were only so many bullies to beat up, in the end. So it was inevitable that one day the two strongest bully-hunters would cross paths.

Hibari arrived second. Taking one look at the brawl, already winding down with Ryohei once again emerging victorious, he pulled out his tonfas and attacked.

"For disturbing the peace, I will bite you to death," Hibari announced as Ryohei just barely dodged his first strike.

"We're the ones protecting the peace!" Ryohei shot back.

"You're a herbivore. I am the one who protects this town," Hibari said.

"I'm a man fighting to protect, to the extreme!" Ryohei refused to back down.

Tsuna, who had been helping the bullied little boy retrieve his book from the tree it had been thrown into, tried to intervene at this point. "Um, Onii-san…"

Predictably, he was ignored.

Feeling put out, Tsuna momentarily considered just letting them fight it out. But... Kyoko-chan would be sad, if Ryohei got beat up that much. Hibari Kyoya was already gaining quite a reputation, mostly for taking on even adults — criminals no less — and coming out victorious.

So instead, Tsuna reached into his pocket and pulled out the device Shoichi had given him. It had started out as a gag hand buzzer — a small round toy that could be hidden in the palm of the hand and gave a tiny shock then the button on the other side was pressed, for example during a handshake.

Under Shoichi's excited experimentation, it became a handheld taser with a rather respectable output.

Shoichi had actually made two, for dual wielding purposes.

Putting on his best harmless small animal expression, Tsuna turned to the escalating battle between the two self-proclaimed protectors of Namimori.

"Hibari-san! Please stop!" Tsuna cried, running toward them.

Hibari hesitated for a moment. He was still young and hadn't quite learned to regard everyone and everything with suspicion. He barely reacted as Tsuna's small hand closed over his arm, as if trying to stop him from driving his tonfa into Ryohei's face.

The taser activated on contact, shocking Hibari with enough voltage to make him sway helplessly, barely able to remain on his feet.

"Sawada! That was not extreme at all!" Ryohei protested. "We're having a duel, as two extreme men!"

"What will Kyoko say?" Tsuna shot back, with a precision strike. "You promised to fight only to protect! What are you protecting, your pride? A man needs to know when to not fight too!"

Tsuna's useless dad had said that when his mom had turned to him with pleading eyes and asked to let her dress up Tsuna in that very cute bunny costume. Tsuna had also turned pleading eyes toward him, hoping for some solidarity between men, only to be completely betrayed as Iemitsu laughed awkwardly and delivered that particular bit of wisdom.

"B-but…" Ryohei flailed helplessly. "But I'm fighting for my right to fight to protect!" he finally managed.

Tsuna was not impressed. "If you and Hibari both want to protect the town, you should work together," he said. "I'm sure it'll be okay if you're his… subordinate."

When Tsuna turned toward him, Hibari scowled. "I'll bite you to death," he promised, a little blearily. He tried to raise his tonfas, only to stumble, his balance still off.

Tsuna reached out to steady him — completely forgetting the taser still in his palm. The second shock was enough to make Hibari groan and collapse.

"He's the leader?" Ryohei wondered, looking at Hibari, now on the ground, without concern, but rather dubiously. "How come?"

"Because he's older than us, and stronger," Tsuna said. What he really meant was that Hibari would never follow anyone else, and he'd beat them up for just suggesting it.

"But you beat him," Ryohei said, scratching his head.

Tsuna felt something cold brush down his spine. It might have been a premonition of the chaos and suffering those words would cause.

It might have been Hibari's basilisk glare.

~.~.~

As had become her habit, Kyoko arrived with an authority figure and first aid supplies. The unfortunate policeman she had managed to snag stopped short as he caught sight of Hibari's prone figure. He began to sweat heavily in fear, and he appeared all too happy to drag off the bullies, who had been playing dead, off to be reprimanded.

Ryohei and Hibari didn't even seem to notice.

"Sawada is very extreme! I'll gladly follow him!" Ryohei was insisting. True to form, Ryohei had completely turned a few apparently innocuous comments into some kind of completely bizarre plan of action that only he could possibly support.

"I don't follow anyone," Hibari repeated, refusing to budge.

"It's fine, isn't it? Hibari can be the leader," Tsuna tried to make his opinion known. As before, he was completely ignored.

"Hibari-san wants to be the leader?" Kyoko asked, rather confused, as she tried to figure out what was going on. "I'm surprised. It doesn't seem like something he would enjoy. Being the leader just means you have to talk to people a lot and do diplomatic things, right? Like a class president."

Hibari turned to regard her thoughtfully. Tsuna realized he had been stabbed in the back from the angle he had least expected.

"…Very well. I will leave those herbivore duties to you," Hibari decided. His eyes narrowed. "But I will still bite you to death, for possession of unauthorized weaponry."

And so their group grew.

~.~.~

While Hibari never precisely joined, as such, he still apparently counted toward their group membership total, which had reached five.

"Come on, aren't you guys taking this too seriously?" Tsuna tried to say. "I mean, we're not like a real group or anything."

Truthfully, he was just sick of mediating Ryohei and Hibari's prolonged arguments about who would patrol where. Kyoko's only contribution had been to insist on lunch and dinner breaks. Shoichi, usually Tsuna's ally in common sense, had gotten caught up too, drawing out an entire map of Namimori and providing little figurines to mark the members of their group and the gathering places of known peace-disturbers.

Kyoko hummed thoughtfully. "That's true. We don't even have a name yet," she agreed. Except that wasn't Tsuna's point at all. "We should choose one. Tsuna-kun, you're the leader, what do you think we should be called?"

"H-huh? Me?" Tsuna stammered, never expecting that turn in the conversation. "I don't know. What about you guys?"

"Well, it should have Namimori in the name," Shoichi said reasonably.

"I think something that mentions peace would be nice," Kyoko added earnestly. "That's what we're fighting for, after all."

"The Disciplinary Committee," Hibari said, from his position pointedly away from the rest of them.

"The Boxing Club!" Ryohei roared.

"Denied!" Tsuna cut him off. "We're not a club, and you're the only one who does boxing!"

That, of course, led to another spirited attempt by Ryohei to recruit Tsuna into his as of yet not existent Boxing Club.

In the end, they became the Peaceful Namimori Committee. Originally, it was supposed to be the Committee for Peaceful Life in Namimori, but the others quickly changed it when Tsuna suddenly burst into bitter tears at what he felt was the terrible joke the world at large was playing on him.

~.~.~

Unfortunately, Tsuna did not learn from that experience. He still did not quite understand the true, inescapable nature of his situation.

"We can't keep meeting like this," Tsuna tried once more to make his friends see sense. "Look, we're all going to get sick meeting out in the cold."

Winter had come to Namimori, the air now cold enough to make their breath mist as they gathered at the now abandoned playground.

"Maybe we can meet at the school," Kyoko offered. She was cold too, trying to warm her hands by breathing on them.

"School grounds are off limits after school hours," Hibari said, from over by the slide.

"We need a club room," Ryohei agreed, nodding knowingly.

Tsuna thought that what they really needed was to give up on this nonsense and go home. But… on the other hand, he wouldn't get to see Kyoko as often, so he hesitated, biting his lip.

"How about someone's house?" Shoichi suggested reasonably.

"Waste of time, herding back and forth," Hibari shot him down.

"There's nowhere we could meet that would be close to your patrol routes," Tsuna said, a bit exasperated. "They're all through the bad parts of town! What do you suggest we do, take over some gang's turf?"

He shouldn't have said anything.

Hibari looked thoughtful. It was a bad sign.

~.~.~

"If you were gonna do dojo-yaburi, you extremely should've let us know!" Ryohei said loudly. Leaning out the window, he peered at the large billboard that said "Momokyokai" and added, "It might be hard to take their sign with you though."

"They'll be taking the sign with them when they leave," Hibari said. "We'll be taking the building. It should be fine for you herbivores to crowd in."

"I can't believe you beat up a yakuza group," Tsuna muttered, feeling somewhere between stunned and horrified. "I can't believe you beat up a yakuza group just to take over their home base."

Hibari looked unrepentant, as always. "Just so we're clear," he added, "I don't care about where herbivores like to crowd. This entire town is my territory, not theirs."

The Momokyokai had tried to disagree. It hadn't ended well for them. The entire building was strewn with unconscious, beaten men, including their leader, who lay whimpering at Hibari's feet.

"Hibari, we can't just kick them out," Tsuna tried to reason.

Giving him a deeply unimpressed look, Hibari set out to prove him wrong — by grabbing the yakuza boss by the collar and, with impressive strength for an elementary school kid, hauling him to the window. The second floor window.

So that was why it had been open.

"Hibari!" Tsuna protested as Hibari began to push the yakuza boss out into thin air. "Don't do that!" Tsuna pleaded. "What about… what about the clean up? Who's going to help us fix everything up and move the furniture?"

Pausing in his defenestration, Hibari looked dubiously between Tsuna and the yakuza boss.

"You want him to help?" Hibari repeated.

"Well, how else are we going to do? There's only five of us," Tsuna said, crossing his arms. "I'm sure the Momokyokai will be happy to help us move in."

The yakuza boss, his back bend over the window ledge and only still hanging on thanks to Hibari's strong grip, nodded frantically in agreement.

~.~.~

When Kyoko arrived, Tsuna asked her to help him patch up the worst of the injuries Hibari had inflicted. He felt guilty, honestly, since Hibari had only done this for their sake, in his own weird way.

The yakuza members were surprisingly docile when it came to helping the Peaceful Namimori Committee move in — which mostly just involved cleaning up all the things that had gotten broken in Hibari's initial assault and then carrying in Shoichi's boxes of belongings.

However, that didn't last long.

It was barely two weeks before the Momokyokai reassembled and tried to retake their former home base.

Their attack was repelled with ease. Hibari was far less forgiving this time, and he took entirely too much pleasure in continuing to kick the members even after they were down.

When Tsuna intervened, the yakuza boss all but clung to his legs, whimpering in fear.

"That's enough," Tsuna told Hibari, refusing to back down despite the glare he received. "If you keep beating them up, they won't be able to clean up the mess they made."

And it was, indeed, quite a mess. Hibari glanced back at the numerous holes that had been put in the walls, the broken furniture, the door ripped off its hinges, and shrugged. He wasn't much for any manual labor that wasn't fighting, and he was all too happy to dump it off on someone else.

Tsuna turned to the yakuza leader with a smile. "Come on, let's get you patched up. But you know, I'm not sure he's going to listen to me if you do this again. If the building is so important, I'm sure we can work something out. We don't actually need this much space."

~.~.~

And that was how, thanks to Tsuna's wonderful leader-ly diplomatic skills, the Momokyokai first moved into their group's base, then began to help with their group's activities, and finally became a branch of their group altogether.

Of course, the path to that outcome was filled with difficulties and beatings administered by Hibari and occasionally Ryohei — for example, to make sure the Momokyokai understood that the Peaceful Namimori Committee opposed all peace-disrupting activity and did not appreciate the Momokyokai helping drive other gangs away just to take their business for themselves.

But Tsuna's steady efforts to keep the Momokyokai members alive and his seemingly unerring forgiveness of their trespasses slowly earned him their loyalty and adoration. He wasn't just the good cop, as Shoichi pointed out. When compared with Hibari, he was like a saint.

They never did get around to taking down the sign.

~.~.~

It was just another ordinary day, and Tsuna was once again stuck doing the after school clean up alone. However, this time it wasn't because his partner on the chore schedule had ditched "Dame-Tsuna" to do the work by himself.

"You really don't have to stay," Tsuna told his partner.

Yamamoto Takeshi, rising baseball star, currently on break from all sports due to his broken arm, grinned and shrugged. "I can't help like this," he said, gesturing a little with his cast, "but I can at least keep you company."

Shrugging, Tsuna got back to work.

As he was finishing up, Yamamoto broke the silence again. "Hey, Tsuna," he said, casual and friendly as always, "are you in a club or something? You're always going off somewhere after school, and Kyoko too."

"Club? Well, it's kind of like that," Tsuna grumbled. "Why do you ask?"

"Hmm, you look like… you're really having fun," Yamamoto commented, sounding almost wistful. "Like you're enjoying yourself a lot."

Tsuna paused. "…Maybe I am," he admitted quietly.

It was a strange thought but… it was true, wasn't it? He enjoyed himself, being with Kyoko and Onii-san and Shoichi and even Hibari.

"Yeah, I guess I am," Tsuna said, smiling. "I'm having fun."

"Do you think I could join too?" Yamamoto wondered. "I mean, even though I'm like this." He gestured again with his cast.

Tsuna had fully intended to say no, but a glance at Yamamoto made him pause. He had never seen his usually cheerful classmate so uncertain or downcast. He supposed that, banned from the baseball he dedicated so much of his time to and more or less abandoned by his teammates, Yamamoto must have felt at loose ends and very lonely.

"…Sure, why not?" Tsuna said, sighing. "But don't blame me if you don't like it. You can leave anytime."

Yamamoto — Takeshi — grinned.

~.~.~

He didn't leave, incidentally, even after his arm healed. Fighting evildoers, according to Takeshi, was the most exciting thing he had ever done. He even decided to ask his father to teach him their sword style, Takeshi excitedly told Tsuna.

Tsuna just sighed again.

By this point he understood — there was no point in fighting it. Some things were just meant to be.

It was in his blood, you could say.

~.~.~


	2. Robots and allies

~.~.~

**Title:** Vigilante Tendency

**Summary:** Tsuna's vigilante organization goes international.

**Notes:** Edited 5/24/2014 It's a lot less funny than the first part. Also, I hope you all read the manga because... yeah.

~.~.~

After a certain point - unknown to Tsuna, the point when he managed to recruit every individual with a certain degree of vigilante inclination in Namimori - life for Tsuna and the rest of the Committee fell into an almost peaceful rhythm of vigilante nonsense - the occasional fight with everything from school gangs a town over to actual criminal organizations - and going to school.

Tsuna was all too happy to embrace it. He, for one, was rather glad that Namimori was quickly moving in the direction of what could only be described as "crime-free" and the Committee was more and more forced to turn their attention to non-fighting-related activities like helping old ladies with their groceries and rescuing cats out of trees.

However, his hopes for these halcyon days to continue were cruelly dashed before too long.

Running out of people to recruit in Namimori just meant new recruits would have to come from abroad.

~.~.~

It started simply enough.

"My friend is coming to visit!" Shoichi announced one day, all but glowing in an unusual display of good cheer.

This was the same friend who had sent Shoichi the robot he had been so valiantly protecting back when he and Tsuna first met. Shoichi and his friend, Spanner, knew each other through an online forum about robotics. They had originally gotten into a bitter war over... some technical detail Tsuna didn't understand, but by end they had exchanged contact information and become geek buddies.

"Actually," Shoichi admitted sheepishly, "I wanted to show him some of the stuff I've been working on. Do you mind if he comes by?"

Tsuna smiled and nodded. After all, they weren't a secret organization or anything, and they had nothing to hide. What did it matter if Shoichi's friend saw the nifty gadgets their resident inventor had so much fun cooking up?

In retrospect, Tsuna should have said no.

~.~.~

Spanner was the placid sort, but he quickly got caught up in Shoichi's excitement about his inventions and about the Committee's... work in general, and the two of them disappeared inside Shoichi's workshop for a week. When they emerged, Spanner declared that he was joining the Committee whether they liked it or not.

"Do you even have a visa?" Tsuna asked.

The fact that Spanner simply waved aside Tsuna's very reasonable questions should have been an indication that everything was not entirely normal with him.

Spanner was only a couple of years older than Shoichi - thus, a middle school student - but he was apparently just fine traveling alone halfway across the world and then staying over for an indefinite period of time. Didn't he have school? Tsuna wondered in despair.

Fortunately, or not, depending on your perspective, there was plenty of room in the part of Momokyokai headquarters set aside for Shoichi's workshop and rolling out an extra futon was no real trouble. Before long, everyone got used to bringing an extra set of meals too, for one more inventor who always forgot to eat, and even started giving him all the lollipops they received from the elderly they helped with various things.

The problem was that Spanner already belonged to a group, and they weren't happy about his sudden change of affiliation.

~.~.~

Tsuna was very grateful for many of Shoichi's inventions. There was the hand taser, of course, very useful. There were the tracking tags that Kyoko had helpfully sewn into all of Ryohei's and Hibari's shirts. Also very useful, given their tendency to run off without a word to anyone.

And then there was the whistle. Shoichi had presented it after the third time Tsuna yelled himself hoarse trying to stop his friends from pointlessly fighting. It was very loud, of course - the ear-piercing sound was enough to stop most people in their tracks. However, the whistle did that literally too. Stop people in their tracks, that is. It worked on a frequency too low for humans to hear and caused a short-term paralyzing effect.

Very, very useful for stopping a fight.

Tsuna put it to good use when he walked in to find the base having become a battlefield - strange foreigners in formerly neat, expensive suits brawling violently with the rowdier members of the Momokyokai.

One deep breath and a long whistle-blow later, the entire building became blessedly still and silent.

"Now, let's all calm down, okay?" Tsuna said, putting the whistle in his pocket. In a trick he had picked up after a while, he encompassed all the foreigners with a quick sweep of the room, making it seem as if he was speaking to each of them personally. Then, Tsuna smiled and bowed. "I'm Sawada Tsunayoshi, Tsuna for short. It's nice to meet you."

He had timed it just as the paralysis wore off. Cowed by his good manners, the foreigners ducked their heads and chorused, "Nice to meet you."

A kid about Tsuna's age, dressed like a punk, stumbled forward. "Yo! I'm Naito Longchamp," he declared, puffing up like a bad-tempered kitten. "I'm the next boss of the Tomaso Family! We're here to-"

"Great," Tsuna cut him off shamelessly. "Would you like some tea? Or do you prefer water? Why don't we take a seat?"

Herding Naito - Night? Knight? - to one of the couches, which was quickly righted and dusted off by a couple of Momokyokai members, Tsuna accepted a cup of tea from Kyoko, who set another in front of Naito and a plate of snacks between them.

Naito couldn't quite resist grabbing one - Kyoko's cookies were delicious.

"Young master," an older man in a tall hat hissed, "be careful!" His concerns about poison were fortunately unfounded, though he looked like he was having a heart attack as Naito glanced at him with puffed up cheeks like a hamster, stuffed full of Kyoko's cookies.

"Thank you for coming to see us," Tsuna continued as Naito washed down the cookies with the slightly bitter green tea. Good manners, he had found, if applied aggressively enough, could cow even Hibari on occasion. "Are you here for the Momokyokai or the Peaceful Namimori Committee?"

"I'm here for the ones that poached our head mechanic!" Naito declared, slamming his cup into the coffee table. Some of the remaining tea sloshed out. Tsuna pressed a napkin into his hands, all but forcing Naito to use it.

"Do you mean Spanner?" Tsuna asked mildly. "He didn't mention having a job. What kind of work does he do?"

"Well, he's our head mechanic," Naito repeated, getting sidetracked. "He does development and tuning, and he works on our vehicles too. You know, the Tomaso Family is famous for our cars, boats and heavy machinery, so..."

"Oh, you're in the automotive industry?"

"No, man, we're in the mafia!" Naito laughed. "We're the biggest mafia family in England!"

Tsuna laughed too. Mostly because otherwise he would cry.

~.~.~

Naito turned out to be a cheerful, easy-going type - mafia connection aside. He was happy to explain to Tsuna that he spoke Japanese because he was a big anime fan. He was also suitably impressed by Takeshi's katana.

He even volunteered his Family members to help clean up the mess they had made, with only the subtlest of guilt-tripping from Tsuna.

"Come ooooon, Spanner," Naito whined, scratching at the workshop door like a cat. "You've gotta come back! Or Pops will be so mad!"

"I refuse," Spanner called back. He had locked himself and Shoichi in the workshop the moment he realized the Tomaso had arrived, and it seemed the two of them had managed to weld shut the thick blast doors (installed for the safety of those outside).

"Spanneeeeer," Naito moaned. "I'll get you that, uh, thing you wanted! We'll renovate your lab!"

"So what? What do it matter what kind of equipment I have, if all I'm doing is the same boring stuff?" Spanner shot back. "I'm sick it! I want to do something new and exciting, not your stupid mindless routine maintenance! This improvisation stuff Sho-chan's doing is much more fun. I like it. And the atmosphere here is great too."

Wailing pitifully, Naito curled up into a ball and began to cry, utterly desolate. "Pops is gonna be so mad," he moaned.

Gingerly, Tsuna patted him on the back. "It'll be okay," he said. "We'll figure something out." With a sigh, he knocked gingerly on the workshop door. "Spanner, Shoichi, we're going to have lunch. Come out, okay? ...Kyoko made cake today."

There was some frantic clanging, and then the door slid open.

~.~.~

"Okay," Tsuna said, having listened to both Naito and Spanner whine for nearly two hours. What happened to the British stiff upper lip? "So what you're saying is... Spanner, you want to do more than just the same thing over and over again. Naito, you want Spanner to get back to work and stop running off to do whatever he feels like."

The aforementioned two nodded, both clutching their teacups.

"Well, you both have good points," Tsuna said. "Naito, Spanner's right. He's not just a mechanic. He's a top-notch inventor. You're wasting his time having him doing little tune ups."

Or at least, that's how Tsuna would have felt about Shoichi working at a factory or something. Spanner nodded, looking smug.

"Think about how much more he could do for Tomaso," Tsuna continued. "You want to advance too, right? Stay ahead of the competition and all that? Then it's only natural to invest more in research and development."

He was just going to ignore the mafia part. Just think of them as a car company, Tsuna told himself.

Now Naito was nodding along as well, and Tsuna turned to Spanner next.

"And, Spanner, Naito has a point too. You can't just blow off your projects or run away whenever you get bored. Otherwise, the Tomaso won't be able to trust you as their head mechanic," Tsuna said. "Even if it's boring sometimes, you have to stick with it."

Spanner sulkily shifted the lollipop in his mouth, looking properly chastised.

"You can come visit whenever you want - and you let everyone at Tomaso know," Tsuna conceded. "We'll be happy to have you, if you need a change of pace."

"That's a great idea!" Naito agreed. "I'm sure Pops'll agree too. It's a great chance to build ties in Asia. I'll come too! You guys are great!"

He burst into obnoxious laughter. Spanner was smiling and nodding. Tsuna suddenly had a premonition of dread.

"Wait-"

"In fact," Naito continued loudly, "let's make it official! Let's form an alliance between your Family and mine!"

Tsuna stared down at his outstretched hand in disbelief. Then, he sighed. "We're a Committee," he corrected, clasping Naito's hand. "And the Momokyokai are yakuza, who help us out sometimes."

"Oh? So what do you guys do?" Naito asked.

"They're a vigilante group," Spanner replied. "Sho-chan told me all about it."

"We're not..." Tsuna tried to say. But thinking about it, yeah, they kind of were. They definitely beat up a lot of criminals, illegally. Kyoko had even learned to time the arrival of authority figures so that their group had time to get away. Narrowing his eyes, Tsuna compromised. "We're protectors," he said, with great dignity. "We protect the people and the peace of Namimori."

"That's... so cool!" Naito exclaimed. "So you're allies of justice!"

"I heard from Sho-chan that they toppled all the local gangs," Spanner added. "Those peach people were a gang, but they reformed and became allies of justice too."

Naito looked at Tsuna with stars in his eyes. "And you're the leader, even though you're just my age..." he mused. "I wish I was that strong."

"I'm not strong," Tsuna protested. "I just had lots of help and... A man has to fight to protect! That's why I've been able to do all this..."

If anything, Naito looked even more awestruck. "Tsuna!" he declared. "I promise on our (new) friendship that I'll follow your ideals! I'll become a man who protects!"

~.~.~

This was not, admittedly, all Tsuna's fault. Naito really was just like that. He liked to copy Kamen Rider poses and catchphrases, after all.

~.~.~

Tsuna would have thought that Naito's father, the mafia boss, wouldn't be too please with his son's sudden - literally, within a couple hours - turn to vigilantism.

He would have been wrong. Longchamp Sr. thought his son's sudden dedication to protecting the people and reforming their Family was charming. And also very manly.

Naito's father sent the Committee a fruit basket in gratitude.

He also sent them an all expenses paid group vacation to Mafia Land.

~.~.~

"A vacation would be nice," Kyoko said.

"You've got to be joking," Tsuna shook his head. "It's to Mafia Land! Mafia. Land."

"Just because it has such an un-extreme name doesn't mean we shouldn't go," Ryohei said.

"It sounds exciting!" Takeshi said brightly. "Besides, it might not even have anything to do with the mafia."

"This ticket is for an entire 'famiglia,'" Tsuna presented a counter point. "Famiglia. Mafia!"

"So we can bring the Momokyokai," Kyoko said reasonably, or not so much, really.

"Don't worry," Shoichi said. "Spanner told me about that place. It's neutral ground, and it's got a powerful protector who doesn't allow any violence or fighting."

"I'm staying in Namimori," Hibari said. Glancing at Tsuna, he smirked. "I'll make sure to keep the herbivores in line while you're gone."

Traitor. He just liked Spanner's special modified tonfas and wanted to test them out without anyone to stop him.

~.~.~

The Momokyokai's exuberant joy at being invited to Mafia Land didn't make Tsuna feel any better. The yakuza group's boss had actually groveled and hugged Tsuna's knees in gratitude for bringing them "into the big leagues."

However, there was no way to back out. Kyoko, also a traitor, had gone behind Tsuna's back and told Nana all about their vacation plans. In the face of his mother's excitement, Tsuna had been unable to do anything but sigh and nod.

And, well, he might get to see Kyoko in a cute sundress. Traitor or not, she was still the girl he liked.

For a while, it even felt like things were going well. The cruise there was mostly peaceful and pleasant. Naito met them at the dock and managed to completely bypass the usual entry requirements, talking the front desk lady into stamping their passes.

"Usually you have to do a test to show that you're a real mafioso," Naito whispered to Tsuna conspiratorially, "but there's not way I'd let an ally of justice like you be forced to do something like that!"

"...Thanks," Tsuna whispered back, his uneasiness quickly returning.

Of course, things couldn't go that smoothly, not in Tsuna's life.

As they were heading out of the visitor center, a thin man with slicked back hair and a mole under his eye sidled up to them and asked, "So which Family are you boys with? I'm from Beccio."

"Yo! 'Sup?" Naito greeted him. "I'm from Tomaso." In an almost uncharacteristic show of discretion, Naito didn't mention being the next boss. It seemed he was a mafia kid after all, and he knew how to play the game.

"I hear Tomaso has really been taking a new direction recently," Beccio's eyes narrowed, his smile taking on a shrewd edge. "Of course, we all know better to believe every rumor. I mean, there's talk of a robot army, of all things!"

Tsuna struggled not to make a face as he realized what was going on. It seemed that even on "vacation," some mafia members still tried to learn more about the competition and sniff out new info about other Families. No wonder the Beccio man was still wearing a suit, even on a tropical island.

"Yeah, we got one of those. It's great stuff," Naito agreed, making Beccio's laughter cut off sharply. "Our head mechanic got a lot of inspiration when we were in Japan."

"H-how unexpected," Beccio bleated. "I always heard the Tomaso were very... peaceful."

They were supposed to be cowards whose only ability lay in their business acumen and who couldn't fight except across a conference table.

The Tomaso had been the butt of many jokes among the mafia, ever since their third boss had fled the bloody mafia wars a century back and relocated his entire Family to England.

Those taunts had sadly persisted even as the Tomaso bought out almost the entire British Isles and became the largest crime syndicate across the channel through the power of cold, hard cash. Even rival gangs couldn't run if they had no food and no place to sleep, it seemed.

However, Naito's sudden interest in beating up anyone doing the wrong kind of business in their territory - and Spanner's terrifying willingness to supply his personal collection of robotic design attempts to assist him - had put a sudden, shocked halt to the jeering.

Longchamp Sr. had beamed with pride and wiped a tear from his eye when a gang who had just the week before been mocking the Tomaso came to beg for an alliance with their tails between their legs.

"Yeah, our third boss swore not to lose any more men to pointless power struggles," Naito continued, "but now we don't need to lose men, so it's all cool. We needed to give those things a test run anyway."

Beccio nodded dumbly.

"And it's all thanks to my friend here!" Naito added, dragging Tsuna closer. "He really opened my eyes. I couldn't have convinced Pops to give our R&D the money for all this if it wasn't for him! Our alliance is really going to bring about a new age for Tomaso!"

Grinning widely, Naito gave an exaggerated wink to Tsuna.

"A new age of justice and protecting the people!" he whispered. "We'll use our power for good!"

Fortunately, the Beccio representative was too stunned to notice this aside.

~.~.~

"Are you serious? Did Spanner really build a robot army?" Tsuna demanded as they wandered out into the amusement park.

Naito shrugged. "Eh. He already had them. Apparently, all those times he blew off work to go mess around in his private workshop, he was building new robot models. He just had to put some of those tasers on them, and voila! Mind you, some of them are pretty buggy, but we're getting a lot of good data. Actually, Pops is thinking of going into robotics seriously..."

Tsuna fought hard not to bury his face in his hands and cry.

The public announcement system crackled across the park.

"Your attention please," a pleasant female voice said. "Heads of the Difo Family and the Momokyokai yakuza delegations please report to the Mafia Fort immediately. Thank you."

"Difo Family? Oh, they're the biggest in Asia, I think," Naito mused. "Haha, they must have gotten into a fight! We better hurry or we'll all get kicked out."

Tsuna gave up, buried his face in his hands and sobbed.

~.~.~

"This is the Momokyokai boss? Heh, how fitting, an upstart kid for an upstart little group," the Difo boss sneered, his topnot bouncing as he jerked his chin up.

"I'm not the boss of Momokyokai," Tsuna said. "They're allies, and I was the one who invited them here."

"I knew these small fry weren't good enough to get into Mafia Land on their own," Difo smoothly took another angle of attack. "If you're responsible for them, then keep these rats in line, you got it? They've got no business messing with real mafia!"

"I'm sorry if we disturbed the peace in Mafia Land," Tsuna said, bowing a little. "I understand that everyone has come here to relax. I'll make sure no one causes any trouble."

"Leader! It wasn't our fault!" the Momokyokai boss protested. "These blowhards demanded we pay them protection fees!"

"You're overdue! Asia is our territory!" Difo puffed up. "Anyone who operates in Asia owes us a cut! You might have been too pathetic to be worth noticing before, but you've crawled out of your hole now and it's time to pay up!"

Naito whistled quietly. "Really? Trying that sort of thing in Mafia Land?" he muttered.

Tsuna kept smiling apologetically. "A cut?" he repeated. "How much? Ten percent? Fifteen?"

"Fifty," Difo bid ridiculously high. "We want fifty percent of your last operation's profits. And we'll be watching you from now on, so don't think you can skip out on future payments!"

"I see. Then, where should we deliver the payments?" Tsuna asked. He nodded along as the Difo leader provided a bank account. "Okay. As for our last operation... Here it is."

Rooting around in his backpack, Tsuna pulled out a mandarin and held it out.

"Huh? What kind of joke is this?" Difo demanded.

"Well, it's more like twenty percent. We got five of them, but we already ate the rest," Tsuna admitted. "That's the profit from our last operation. We helped Chiyo-san find her cats."

All seventeen of them.

"We'll be in touch," Tsuna added.

Oh yes, they would be. Shoicihi would certainly be in touch with their bank account - to empty it out toward charitable donations and follow the trail of money transfers to the rest of their accounts as well.

Drawing attention to yourself was dangerous, after all.

~.~.~

Notably, Tsuna never once explained what group he actually belonged to.

Rumors ran wild. Momokyokai were their allies, and so were Tomaso. They had a terrible sense of humor. They had an interest in robotics, or was it fresh produce?

They were based in Japan. They brought down the Difo Family within a week.

All anyone could agree on was that a new power was emerging in Asia.

~.~.~

By the time a little boy arrived in Namimori, impossibly massive book in hand, and asked for protection because they were "the group number one most likely to change the mafia," Tsuna had just sort of given up.

"So your name is Fuuta?" he confirmed.

"That's right," Fuuta said, peering up at Tsuna with his big, cute animal eyes. "And you're Sawada Tsunayoshi, the number one least able to refuse a request. Can I call you Tsuna-nii?"

"Okay," Tsuna said, grabbing Fuuta by the hand and pulling him into an alley.

"You're trapped now, you little..." one of the three mafiosi chasing them began to say, only to trail off as he took in the scene inside the alley.

Tsuna and Fuuta were there. So were a dozen members of the Momokyokai. They cracked their knuckles, advancing. "Picking on kids? You scum," the Momokyokai growled. "Don't you know this is our town? We won't let anyone disturb the peace in Namimori!"

Amidst the brutal beat down that followed, one of the Momokyokai members waved to Tsuna with a smile. "We've got this, Leader!" he called out.

"Thank you!" Tsuna called back, waving as well. He patted Fuuta on the head. "Come on, it's almost dinner time. You can stay at my house. Mom'll be happy to have you."

Fuuta hugged his ranking book happily. Coming to Namimori was the best decision ever.

~.~.~

**Notes:** You can see my utter and complete dedication to canon. *sarcasm*

~.~.~


	3. Hitmen everywhere

~.~.~

**Title:** Vigilante Tendency

**Summary:** In which the mafia is very confused. They default to the two usual reactions: assassins and denial.

**Notes:** Edited 6/24/2014. A guest suggested changes to the Chinese. I decided to still go with "ni hao" just because it's more recognizable to more readers.

~.~.~

And then there were assassins.

In Namimori.

~.~.~

Naturally, their escapades in Mafia Land and Shoichi's online adventures after their return couldn't go without consequence.

No one was quite sure what was happening or who was responsible, but there were definitely waves being made.

Tomaso and their robot army - Robot army? Really? Why, Spanner, why? - had turned England upside down, and the greater mafia community was watching with unease, certain it was only a matter of time before things spilled over across the channel.

The Difo had been bankrupted, crippling them possibly beyond recovery and forming a massive power vacuum in Asia.

Japan itself had always been somewhat off the mafia's radar, but what had been an empty space now appeared to be an unknown threat.

Who was causing all this? Was it some kind of new group? A mafia family? A yakuza gang? The leader was supposedly just a kid, or maybe that was just a decoy? Mafia Land, with its strict policy of neutrality, refused to provide any security footage of this mystery group or a list of the members who had visited.

Whatever they were doing and whoever they were, the mafia and the criminal underworld at large couldn't allow this kind of... unrest.

So despite having no leads and little in the way of concrete information, foreign assassins quickly began to appear all across Japan, and some inevitably found their way to Namimori.

There, they met a dead end - or rather, they met a dead end and then they met Hibari, who put a different kind of end to their search.

~.~.~

But actually, life kind of went on like always.

Being internationally wanted - confirmed by Fuuta to be number one on the mafia's list, to Tsuna's horror - didn't change much of anything. Hibari's biting people schedule now included accosting suspicious foreigners, and Shoichi started monitoring those entering Japan a little more closely, but that was really all.

Except, of course, when assassins ended up on their doorstep... and refused to leave.

~.~.~

"Tsuna-san!" Haru called out, bursting into the Momokyokai building. "Tsuna-san, I need your help!"

She was dragging a little girl along by the arm. Given Haru's deep love of children and meddling nature, this was not the first time. Of course, neither the Committee nor Momokyokai had any objection to helping kids in tough situations, so it all worked out in the end.

However, this little girl was putting up quite a fight. As the two of them passed the doorway, she managed to grab onto the edge and held on hard enough to put a dent in the wall. Nonetheless, Haru managed to pry her away and haul her inside. Haru was practically an unstoppable force where the well being of children was concerned.

"Hi, Haru," Tsuna said, not even surprised anymore. "What's up?"

"I found her wandering around town, all by herself!" Haru told him. In Haru's book, that was a capital offense. "But she won't tell me anything about her parents or guardians!"

The little girl frowned, looking between them.

"I-pin, work now," she protested.

'Huh?' Tsuna thought.

"Hahi! You're just a little girl! What kind of work are you doing?" Haru demanded.

"Need find person," I-pin replied. "Goal."

She and Haru stared at each other stubbornly. Tsuna sighed.

"So who are you looking for?" he asked, kneeling in front of I-pin.

"Bad men," I-pin said, thinking for a moment. Giving up on Japanese, she instead added something in Mandarin.

They stared at each other for a moment.

"You know, I think we better go get Hibari-san," Tsuna said, pragmatically.

~.~.~

The moment she set eyes on Hibari, I-pin turned bright red and attached herself to Tsuna's leg. The moment Hibari set eyes on I-pin, his expression turned thunderous and he stormed off, already pulling out his cellphone. Tsuna knew for a fact this was not the first time a girl had developed an ill-advised crush on him, so he had to wonder why this particular crush was apparently so problematic.

It was not, in fact, the crush that was the problem. It was the red uniform. Hibari had immediately recognized it. He expressed his displeasure in rapid fire Mandarin, to whoever was on the other end of the line.

Well, going by Tsuna's extensive experience reading Hibari's tone - because trying to understand Hibari's special dialect of animal-themed metaphors was unreliable at best - Hibari first snapped a question and an accusation. The answer he received did not make him the least bit happy, and he proceeded to lecture, with a side of demarcating his territory - Tsuna would recognize that particular posture anywhere.

Finally, Hibari stormed back over and held the phone out to I-pin. When I-pin clung to Tsuna even tighter, he held the phone out to his erstwhile leader instead, who passed it down to I-pin.

"Ni hao?" I-pin trilled. "Ah, Sifu!"

As she listened intently to whoever was on the other end of the line, Tsuna looked to Hibari for an explanation. He didn't receive one.

(The explanation was thus: Hibari easily recognized the uniform used by that man to whom he does not acknowledge relations and correctly deduced that I-pin was his student. He initially contacted that man to chew him out for allowing his... herd to invade Hibari's territory, assuming there was some herbivorous plot in the works, something like "bonding" or "building family relations," only to be informed that the girl was acting as an independent assassin now. Hibari had then chewed out that man for not keeping track of his herd properly and ordered him to order his student to stand down, or else Hibari would make her.)

(Fon wisely did so.)

Acknowledging her master's orders, I-pin bid him goodbye and handed the phone back to Tsuna, who handed it back to Hibari.

"About the person you're looking for..." Tsuna said.

"No need," I-pin responded. "Sifu say not do."

"Then, let's get some lunch," Haru said, "and then we'll help you get where you need to go."

I-pin began to demure, but her stomach growled at that moment.

"Okay," Tsuna said, feeling like he was on familiar ground again. "You're in luck. I think Kyoko's cooking something today..."

~.~.~

Kyoko was indeed cooking, as evidenced by the Momokyokai members crowding just outside the kitchen, attracted by the delicious scents wafting out into the rest of the headquarters.

Kyoko's cooking was almost legendary, and even though Hibari had made it abundantly clear that it belonged only to the Committee - coupled with Tsuna's best guilt trip about how having to cook for the entire Momokyokai, because she would, being such a kind person, would be a terrible burden on her, and they didn't want that, now did they - that didn't stop the former yakuza from begging for scraps every time.

No, really. Once, Tsuna had volunteered to wash the dishes, only to find the pots all licked clean and the plates yanked out of his hands to experience the same.

"Oh, a new face?" Kyoko said agreeably. "Today we're having curry. It's a special recipe!"

Tsuna noticed that the two plates she set out for Haru and I-pin were a little different in color from the ones she gave to him and Hibari, but the rumbling of his stomach distracted him. If it was from Kyoko-chan, it had to be delicious anyway, right?

Holding a pitcher of water in her hands, Kyoko watched them dig in with a beatific smile.

"Delicious as always, Kyoko-chan!" Haru praised, blushing a little in happiness.

"Yum!" I-pin added, munching cheerfully, her cheeks puffed out like a hamster's.

Kyoko nodded along, her smile unwavering.

Tsuna and Hibari had gone stone still. Finally, Tsuna let out a choked sound. Beside him, Hibari slowly toppled over, having gone simultaneously red and pale in the face.

"How is it, Tsuna-kun?" Kyoko asked, beaming. "My special 'Tell the Truth or Feel Your Mouth Burn Forever' super-spicy recipe."

"W-w-w-water," Tsuna managed to force out, reaching one trembling hand toward her and the water pitcher she held.

"Recently, you and my brother have definitely been hiding something from me," Kyoko said, ignoring his suffering. "Ever since that vacation we took. All of you have been whispering together about something, but every time I try to ask about it, you or my brother butt in. Tsuna-kun... that makes me so sad..."

She sniffled a little, tears gathering in her eyes. Tsuna would have been moved to tears himself by the sight, except that he was already in tears and feeling like he was about to die.

Instead, Haru and I-pin patted her on the arm consolingly, all the while continuing to eat their non-murderously spicy curry.

"O...kay... I'll... tell," Tsuna chocked out. "But... w-w-water..."

"Promise?" Kyoko asked. "To never keep things from me again?"

Tsuna held up a trembling pinky, which Kyoko happily linked with hers.

"If you go back on it, I'll make a special 'Promise Breaker' thousand needle dish!" Kyoko promised cheerfully.

Snatching the pitcher from her arms, Tsuna all but upended it on his head.

~.~.~

Hibari refused to go anywhere near Kyoko after that. It seemed he was a bit weak to spicy foods. He kept muttering something about poisonous creatures.

In nature, the most attractive, brightly colored ones are the most dangerous, you see.

~.~.~

"By the way," Reborn said, pausing to take a sip of his espresso, "I heard from Bianchi that a lot of hitmen have been heading to Japan."

Iemitsu choked on his tea.

"Is that so? Who is the target?" Nono inquired mildly.

"I wouldn't know. This job is too low-caliber for me," Reborn said indifferently. Of course, if he was actually indifferent, he wouldn't have brought it up in the first place.

The sadistic little troll loved to, well, troll Iemitsu.

"By the way, Iemitsu," Reborn said to the CEDEF leader, who was still coughing to clear his throat, "if it's too strong for you, you should go easy on the whiskey, especially so early in the day."

"I don't drink on the job," Iemitsu gritted out. "And where exactly in Japan are they heading?"

"I told you, I wouldn't know," Reborn said. "I only heard about it in passing from Bianchi. She wasn't too interested either, because the job's apparently heavy on research and stake outs. She likes fast-paced, flashy jobs better..."

Iemitsu paled at that. A lot of searching for the target, meaning the information was limited; in Japan; well-paid, given the large draw...

Could it be... the Young Lion's family?

"That sounds very interesting," Nono noted. Glancing at Iemitsu and smiling, he said, "Perhaps we should look into it."

Catching his meaning, Iemitsu's face split into a wide grin and he began to laugh uproariously. "Leave it to us! The CEDEF will handle it! I'll personally go undercover to investigate this on the scene!"

~.~.~

"I'm home!" Iemitsu called out boisterously, bursting into the house.

There was no reply, but he didn't let that deter him.

"Nana! Tsuna! Papa's home~!" he sang, waltzing into the living room.

The living room was full of floating things - the couch pillows, the vase, the remote, the framed photos, all spinning in a slow, majestic circle near the ceiling.

Iemitsu had two thoughts.

'There's a kid I don't know in our living room,' was the first. He was absolutely sure that wasn't Tsuna. Tsuna was the same age as Basil, and a few years older than the boy sitting on the floor, in front of a large book.

'Wait, I do know that kid,' was the second. Indeed, it was Fuuta de la Stella, the Ranking Prince.

Iemitsu nodded to himself, feeling as if a great mystery had been solved. That also explained the mysteriously floating items.

But... what was the Ranking Prince doing in their living room?

"...7th for freshest produce in Namimori," Fuuta was muttering to himself as he looked through several sheets of advertisements about upcoming sales. He paused to make a note in his ranking book. "Huh," he muttered in surprise, "Sawada Iemitsu... 32nd most likely mafioso to miss something obvious..."

It seemed Iemitsu had inadvertently stepped into Fuuta's ranking field.

"Yo!" Iemitsu said brightly, holding up one hand in greeting. This... this was going to be tough. Fuuta could probably easily tell exactly who Iemitsu was, and if he blurted it out to Nana...

Closing his eyes, Fuuta breathed out slowly - a technique he had been practicing to gradually close off his connection to the Ranking Planet. Now that he was living with Mama and Tsuna-nii, he wanted to avoid causing trouble as much as possible, and that included not accidentally destroying things by letting them just fall after they floated up during a ranking.

The couch pillows and assorted other objects gently descended, lying scattered across the living room, and Fuuta moved to pick them up. Putting on his best impression of Tsuna's polite "manners or else" look, he handed one of the photos to Iemitsu to put back on its shelf.

Looking down at the photo, Iemitsu saw that it was actually of him and Nana at their wedding.

"By the way, Mr. Young Lion, I need a new book," Fuuta told him, eyes wide and innocent. "And pens. Could you get me some?"

And that was how Iemitsu found himself being blackmailed by a grade schooler.

~.~.~

"Mom, there's a bum on our couch!" Tsuna announced, when he returned that evening. 'And I didn't bring him here,' he added mentally.

It wouldn't have been the first time Tsuna brought someone over to their house - look at Fuuta, who had come for dinner and then just sort of stayed. But Tsuna definitely hadn't invited this guy over, having spent the entire afternoon helping mount a new sign on a small shop downtown after the owner had broken his leg trying to do it himself.

Nana laughed cheerfully in the kitchen. "Oh, Tsu-kun, that's your papa! He's not a bum!"

Tsuna looked down at the man, in only boxers and a tank top, snoring and surrounded by empty beer bottles. "Could've fooled me," Tsuna muttered.

Though... he was an awfully well-paid bum. After all, Tsuna couldn't remember his family ever being short on money, even if they didn't live extravagantly.

Sighing, Tsuna went to get a glass of water. Whether he would give it to the man or empty it on his head remained to be determined.

~.~.~

"And that's why I'll be staying here at the base for a while," Tsuna concluded.

"We'll set up a room for you right away, Leader," said the Momokyokai boss, whose name Tsuna could never remember and who would eternally be Kumi-chou in his mind, after the kanji on his favorite coat.

"That's really not necessary," Tsuna said. "I can just use one of the spare ones."

They had plenty of spare rooms set up for anyone who wanted to spend the night, or a couple nights. I-pin had been only the latest in a series of strays taken in by the Peaceful Namimori Committee, and the little girl was still camping out just down the hall.

The Kumi-chou looked scandalized. Tsuna sighed and let him bark orders to his subordinates to "prepare the executive suite."

"Be careful dropping by the lab, Tsuna," Shoichi told him. "I'm kinda... in the middle of something." Here was another who had stayed overnight and just never really left. His family was apparently unconcerned by Shoichi's tendency to return once every two-three weeks, and only then to ask his mom to do laundry.

"Is this the same something you've been staying up all night to talk to Spanner about?" Tsuna asked. As always, the Momokyokai had no shame in tattling to Tsuna about anything that went on at headquarters, including the fact that Shoichi had not really left his workshop for over a week. "Does it have to do with Fuuta's making things float trick?"

Kyoko had also mentioned that, when she went to give Shoichi his meals, she heard him muttering about hovercars and power-to-weight ratios.

"...Maybe?" Shoichi said. "It's fine, don't worry. I turned in my homework for the next month in advance."

Tsuna couldn't help shooting Shoichi a dirty look. His own marks were still firmly in the just above failing category.

"Leader, is this guy causing you trouble?" Kumi-chou asked, rubbing a finger over his scar thoughtfully. "We're happy to have you here," because it meant they were less likely to get bitten to death by HIbari for crowding or walking too loudly or smelling funny or being too herbivorous, "but Leader shouldn't be forced out of his own home. If you want, me and the boys could give him a talking to. Encourage him to head back to work real quick-like, you know?"

"I really don't know," Tsuna said blandly. "Please don't do that. There's really no need. He'll leave soon enough on his own. It's not like he ever sticks around for long."

Kumi-chou wiped away a tear - Tsuna sincerely hoped that was just an exaggerated gesture and not an actual tear - and murmured something about "Leader" and "gentle heart" and "truly a saint." Tsuna politely ignored him. It was better not to know.

"If you have time, perhaps we can go over this month's activity report," Kumi-chou said instead. "First off, Shin is putting together a group to help with Health and Sports Day. We were also thinking of having our own team..."

"Someone will need to go monitor them," Tsuna said. "Shin's always slipping back into bad habits. They might fall back on the usual 'fee' business..."

~.~.~

Being the head of the CEDEF for a reason, Iemitsu actually noticed even the first night when Tsuna didn't come home. But when he tried to sneak off in the middle of the night to look for his son, Iemitsu almost stumbled over Fuuta, lying in wait by the stairs.

"Tsuna-nii is out with his friends," Fuuta said, yawning. "So don't bother him, okay, Outside Adviser-san?"

Outmaneuvered by a kid in his pajamas, Iemitsu skulked back to his wife and their nice warm bed. He ruminated over what to do for several days. After all, he couldn't just say, "Tsuna, you can't stay over at a friend's house because I'm afraid you'll get attacked by foreign hitmen, because I'm in the mafia, you see. It all started with your great-great-great grandfather..."

Except that, five days in, Iemitsu realized that Tsuna hadn't slept at home for almost a week, and that... that wasn't normal, right?

He came to a conclusion.

"Darling, Tsuna is avoiding me!" Iemitsu sobbed.

It was the right conclusion, actually.

Nana patted his shoulder consolingly. But, he couldn't help but notice, she tellingly didn't deny it.

"Don't give up, dear," Nana said. "I'm sure he misses you in his heart. Tsu-kun just doesn't know how to reach out to you, that's all."

"Nana..." Iemitsu cried, grasping her hands in his. Then, his entire demeanor did a complete one-eighty. "Then we just need to bond! Yes, a manly activity to bring us closer! Fishing-"

~.~.~

"No," Tsuna cut him off, rather sharply, but then it was barely dawn. "That's illegal." He knew because Hibari had bitten to death several people for daring to cast lines in the river.

Iemitsu froze, like a jammed tape deck. "T-t-then how about... how about..."

Tsuna watched him stonily, and Iemitsu could feel himself breaking out in cold sweat. What did kids these days even like to do? What did _Tsuna_ like to do? Iemitsu realized he had absolutely no idea. All Tsuna ever seemed interested in was hanging out with his friends...

"Why don't you introduce Papa to your friends, Tsu-kun?" Iemitsu blurted out.

Tsuna contemplated several responses. "No." "You're too embarrassing." "I barely slept last night because Shoichi somehow magnetized the entire building, or something, and all the furniture ended up on the ceiling." "No, really, explain to me what exactly your job is." "When are you leaving?" "Get out of our house."

Iemitsu looked pleading and amazingly pathetic. Tsuna desperately tried to turn his head away and not look, but that expression just seemed to follow him. In the end, he once again lived up to "number one least able to refuse a request."

"Don't call me Tsu-kun," Tsuna finally replied.

Iemitsu swept him up in a crushing bear hug.

~.~.~

But because Tsuna did have a nasty, vindictive streak deep down, and because he hadn't gotten enough sleep, so he wasn't thinking straight, he introduced his father to Hibari.

"If you disturb the peace in Namimori, I will bite you to death," were predictably the first words out of Hibari's mouth.

Iemitsu's grin didn't waver. "Thank you for looking after my little boy!" he declared instead, patting Tsuna energetically on the back. "Say, why don't we all-"

"I'm going back to patrolling," Hibari told Tsuna, ignoring Iemitsu. He paused for a moment, as if remembering something. "Another foreign fake-carnivore showed up last night. I dealt with them."

"Thanks," Tsuna said, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. That was the third one that month.

"Wait," Iemitsu called out, suddenly serious. That surprising change in demeanor was probably the only thing that saved him from losing the hand he placed on Hibari's shoulder. "Do you... deal with strange foreigners a lot?"

"I protect the peace and order in Namimori," Hibari said blandly. "From anyone who disturbs it." His eyes narrowed, and he shrugged off Iemitsu's hand. Strangely, his response - and the implied threat - only seemed to put Iemitsu at ease.

After Hibari departed, Iemitsu asked, "Are all your friends like that, Tsuna?"

"No... Well, they're all pretty passionate about keeping the peace," Tsuna said. "And I guess they're all pretty strong too. Of course, Hibari-san is the strongest."

"That's good," Iemitsu said. Beaming, he repeated, "That's very good. I'm glad you have such good friends to look after you. They'll help you, if something happens..."

Tsuna's eyes narrowed, and he was about to ask what he meant. But Iemitsu suddenly ruffled his hair, grinning again.

"My Tsu-kun is all grown up!" he cooed. "Making your own family even! Good job, good job!"

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Tsuna protested, flailing. "And don't call me that!"

~.~.~

Iemitsu followed Tsuna around for a while longer, eventually meeting most of the Peaceful Namimori Committee.

If nothing else, Iemitsu was handy with the heavy lifting. Tsuna, rather petulantly, thought Hibari could have out-lifted him, but Hibari didn't believe in doing manual labor, so it was a moot point.

"So you kids do this all the time?" Iemitsu asked Takeshi as they helped carry a china cabinet.

"Oh yeah," Takeshi agreed cheerfully. "It's really fun. I used to be on the baseball team - I still love it! - but I just kind of drifted over to Tsuna's group instead. Everyone is so nice, and it's just really great."

Tsuyoshi struggled to keep a straight face when he served Iemitsu sushi later that day, since he was well aware of what his son was really up to, especially after Takeshi became so much more serious about his kendo.

Iemitsu remained blissfully unaware. He returned to Italy under the impression that Namimori was more peaceful than ever.

It was, admittedly, the correct impression, from a certain point of view.

"There's nothing to worry about!" Iemitsu reported cheerfully. Spending so much time with his family had put him in a wonderful mood. "Japan is totally safe! Namimori especially~ Why, there aren't even any yakuza around anymore!"

"And Tomaso's new ally?" Timoteo asked.

"Are we even sure they're not just bluffing?" Iemitsu said, smiling patronizingly at those rumor mongers. "We haven't seen anything produced by this ally of theirs. And the Difo... for all we know they just ran afoul with a hacker, or maybe it was an inside job, or maybe they even just mismanaged their budget. They might just be trying to shift attention away from themselves. Really, those idiots jumped the gun, putting out a bounty. They're all just chasing ghosts!"

A new family in Japan? Led by a child? What nonsense. Who would even believe something like that?

~.~.~

"This is getting ridiculous," Tsuna muttered as he dragged an unconscious body into the Momokyokai building.

"You're here! Great! I've got so much to tell you," Shoichi, who was holding the door open for him, declared with the manic energy of someone who had clearly not slept in several days. He didn't even glance down at the body, but then Shoichi also thought it was fine to call Tsuna at four in the morning, laugh maniacally, declare, "It's over! We're done!", laugh some more and then hang up before Tsuna could get a word in edgewise.

Naturally, Tsuna couldn't just go back to sleep after that - he knew his friends too well to hope that everything would still be in one piece if he waited until morning - and had no choice but to pull himself out of bed and head down to their base.

He supposed it all worked out, sort of, since he was able to catch a boy their age setting up explosives around the building. And tase him. And drag him inside before anyone noticed.

"We finally worked it out! We can make a prototype now!" Shoichi continued, completely off in his own world.

"Prototype for what? It better not be another robot..." Tsuna said, narrowing his eyes as he heaved the unconscious body onto one of the couches in the lobby. Judging by the way the strange boy was groaning, he wouldn't be unconscious much longer - an impressive recovery rate, even if Tsuna had used the taser's lowest setting.

"Hoverbikes!" Shoichi replied brightly. "We were going to do hovercars, but the weight to thrust ratio was _science science science. Science science..._"

At least, that's how it all sounded to Tsuna, who was failing science almost as thoroughly as he was failing math. For a moment, he could only let the ensuing technobabble wash over him. It was almost hypnotic in its meaningless (to Tsuna) flow.

The strange boy next to him groaned and opened his eyes. He stared blearily up at the ceiling, frowning faintly. It had to be terribly disorienting to wake up to Shoichi's _science_ talk. Tsuna spared a moment of sympathy, but fortunately he didn't waste any more than that.

His sympathy was definitely misplaced. Their would-be saboteur and demolitionist sat up suddenly, an expression of dawning wonder on his face.

"That's brilliant!" he exclaimed, loudly and forcefully enough to make Shoichi pause in his lecture. He grasped Shoichi's hands in his own and stared at the Committee's inventor with a look of pure awe. "I would have never thought of _science science, science!_"

And Tsuna was lost again. He stared at the pair - Shoichi all but preening, the stranger nodding along with his explanations and adding his own enthusiastic comments - and shook his head. "Geeks," he muttered, and went to the kitchenette. Tea was no good at this time of day-night, but he could warm up some milk...

~.~.~

By the time he returned, they were still at it.

Tsuna insistently forced the cup of warm coffee milk substitute into Shoichi's hand, and when Shoichi took a breath to thank him, Tsuna seized the opportunity to interject.

"Shoichi, did you write down all your notes?" Tsuna asked.

"Mm-hm," Shoichi hummed, taking a sip of the warm milk-like substance. "I wrote everythin' an' sent it to Spanner..."

"Then you can pick up where you left off in the morning," Tsuna said firmly. "You can talk with..." Turning to their 'visitor,' he paused meaningfully.

"Gokudera Hayato," the strange boy replied automatically.

"With Gokudera when you wake up," Tsuna finished.

Shoichi hummed agreeably and settled down more comfortably on the couch. It was only moments before he nodded off, leaving Tsuna to rescue the still half-full cup from his grip and take off his glasses.

Turning to Gokudera, Tsuna smiled and handed him the other cup he had prepared. Gokudera accepted it, but only with a dubious look. Now that the euphoric thrill of _science_ was wearing off, he seemed to finally realize his situation - captured by the people he had been trying to blow up, about to be interrogated.

"So what did want from us?" Tsuna asked, in lieu of asking why Gokudera had been trying to blow them up. "By the way, I'm Tsuna. I guess you could say I'm responsible for everyone here."

"Y-you?! But you're just a kid!" Gokudera protested.

"We're the same age," Tsuna muttered.

There was a terribly familiar look beginning to shine in Gokudera's eyes. "A kid like me..." he was muttering to himself. "And he was a kid too, but doing such amazing things. I see, the adults are trying to repress you..."

"No, that's really not..."

"Of course! Adults are the enemy! How could I have let myself be misled by them?!"

It was too late. There was no reasoning with him after that.

Gokudera looked down at the cup in his hands with a determined gaze that was entirely unwarranted. Throwing it back, he swallowed the not-milk inside in one gulp and slammed the cup down onto the coffee table. Then, he slammed his forehead down next to it, in a seated approximation of a dogeza.

"My sincerest apologies!" he declared. "I let myself be deceived by the evil adults and almost made a terrible mistake! I understand now! They're afraid of you because have the power to overturn their ugly ways! Please, allow to join you and aid you in your quest!"

'This is getting ridiculous,' Tsuna thought. 'Don't just decide our purpose by yourself!'

But was there even any point in fighting it? It was still not even five in the morning, and Tsuna couldn't really bring himself to care.

"Okay," he said instead. "Hayato, was it? First of all, let's get those bombs defused, okay?"

~.~.~

Spanner delivered the first prototype hoverbikes - well, actually, he and Shoichi insisted on calling them airbikes, but Tsuna saw no difference - a week later. The less said about the test runs that followed, the better.

The mafia were even more horrified when the Tomaso robot army began to fly. Tsuna felt they were whining too much. At least he had managed to veto Hayato's suggestion of installing bombs and rocket launchers on them. They were, after all, an organization for protecting the peace, not an army in the making.

~.~.~


	4. Rokudo Mukuro

~.~.~

**Title:** Vigilante Tendency

**Summary:** Mukuro is a killjoy, as always. Surprisingly, no one gets possessed.

**Notes:** Edit 5/24/2014. Hmmm. This one is pretty weird, because it's about Mukuro, you know? And he's such a wet blanket. Not much funny to be had. But! Next chapter will be about the great Vongola entrance, so, uh, look forward to that...? (Also, the last chapter, most likely.)

~.~.~

Standing under the blooming sakura in front of Namimori Elementary School, Tsunayoshi Sawada, age 12, wept shamelessly.

"It's okay," Kyoko said, patting him on the shoulder comfortingly. "Even if Onii-san and Shoichi are graduating, Takeshi, Hayato and I will be here next year!"

"That's right, Boss!" Hayato exclaimed earnestly. "I will take care of anything you need! I know I'm still inexperienced, but please put your faith in me!" Considering his answer to everything was still - despite Tsuna's best efforts - "dynamite" and "more dynamite," Tsuna didn't find his offer of support very reassuring.

Kyoko continued to smile. "I'm sure you'll figure it out, Tsuna-kun," she said. "And if all fails, run. But make sure to run somewhere I can find you and bring a teacher."

The sakura petals fell like snow, marking an end and a beginning - of a school year, that is.

~.~.~

5th grade end, 6th grade began, but despite Tsuna's fears, not much really changed.

Bullies, after all, were not in any way immune to tasers.

(It wasn't the bullies he should have worried about, anyway.)

~.~.~

Even if they were now in separate schools - Ryohei and Hibari in Namimori Middle, Shoichi in an elite private school - it wasn't like Tsuna never saw his friends anymore.

They all still met up at the Momokyokai building, after school on most days.

After Namimori Elementary let out on the first day of the new school year, Tsuna had run all the way to their headquarters. Bursting in through the front door, he almost crashed straight into a crowd of Momokyokai members. A couple of them caught him as he stumbled and helped move him to the front of what he now realized was an impromptu fighting ring.

"Join the boxing club!" Ryohei roared, swinging another punch at Hibari. This was apparently the reason for their newest fight.

"No," Hibari refused coldly, blocking with one tonfa and striking back with the other.

A Momokyokai member helpfully explained - Ryohei had made himself captain of the newly formed Namimori Middle School boxing club and was now recruiting members.

Hibari was not interested, but that didn't seem to deter Ryohei in the least.

Tsuna hung his head in defeat. Why, why had he thought anything would change? And why in the world had he dreaded that? Surely a decrease in this kind of nonsense could only be a good thing. This must be what they call Stockholm Syndrome, Tsuna thought.

Closing his eyes in something like pain, Tsuna tapped a Momokyokai member on the arm and held up his whistle meaningfully. A minute later, every Momokyokai spectator had plugged their ears, knowing Tsuna's methods well. Hibari and Ryohei, engrossed in their battle, didn't even notice.

Tsuna took a deep breath and blew.

~.~.~

5th grade end, 6th grade began, but despite Tsuna's fears, not much really changed.

There were still, infuriatingly, mafia people suddenly appearing on their doorstep.

~.~.~

The man - teenage boy, really - who called himself Rokudo Mukuro had a fine-tuned instinct for self-preservation. It came, he supposed, from having experienced death so many times. He could sense it closing in on him yet again, feel its noose tightening around his neck.

In retrospect, he could admit, if only to himself, that his actions had been... a little too rash. He had wiped out many despicable mafiosi, and he didn't regret that, but he should have, perhaps, been a little more discrete about it. As it stood, the entire criminal underworld was hunting him, and even Mukuro could not stand against them all.

At least, not with only Chikusa, Ken and Lancia's almost will-less body behind him. If they were lucky, they would end up imprisoned. More likely, they would end up on a short list to execution.

They couldn't stay in Italy, but where would they go? Where could they go? Who would aid them?

Rokudo Mukuro had a fine-tuned instinct for self-preservation, and he felt the wind shift. Just a hint of something unfamiliar.

An unknown quality that had the mafia whispering uncertainly.

An opportunity, in Japan.

~.~.~

Mukuro didn't believe in having allies, as he would loudly and insistently proclaim. People were untrustworthy and ugly.

But he believed in having lots of disposable pawns to throw to the wolves when the situation called for it - which was just what he did with Lancia, leaving him in Italy to temporarily throw Mukuro's pursuers off his trail.

Also, that robot army sounded very useful. He just needed to figure out who to possess...

~.~.~

One day, Tsuna arrived at the Momokyokai building to find a teenager on their couch and two more behind it, flanking him like bodyguards.

The teenager smiled and said, "I hope you don't mind that we let ourselves in. I am Rokudo Mukuro. There are my companions, Ken and Chikusa, and we wish to join your organization."

Mukuro had planned out a speech - several speeches, actually, depending on if and how much the organization he wished to join knew about him and his activities. The best case scenario was, of course, that these backwater small fry yakuza had no idea of what he'd done in Italy and would accept him easily. The worst case... well, there was always mind control.

Those speeches proved largely unnecessary.

"...Nice to meet you. I'm Tsuna," Tsuna said, far past even being surprised. "Do you prefer tea or just water?"

His smile didn't waver, but Mukuro mentally revised his initial assessment. He had thought the boy who had walked in so carelessly was just some little fool, but it seemed he had at least some skill in manipulation. Even if he wasn't aiming for a poisoning attempt, he was effectively shifting the confrontation onto his terms with just a simple "courtesy" offer.

Mukuro was probably the first person to ever fully appreciate the power of Tsuna's passive aggressive politeness.

"Tea is fine," Mukuro said.

Tsuna set out four cups - one each for Ken and Chikusa as well, a strange and interesting move, since the two of them had clearly positioned themselves as just muscle and to be ignored - and also some cookies. Even well trained as they were, Ken and Chikusa both wavered, looking at the tea and snacks longingly. Ken even sniffed the air and swallowed heavily.

Settling down on the couch across from Mukuro's group, Tsuna tucked in his legs and took a cookie to nibble on. He might as well enjoy this, he thought.

"So," Tsuna began, "just to clarify, which group are you here to join?"

It was a completely legitimate question. The Momokyokai? The Peaceful Namimori Committee? Hibari's new Disciplinary Council (which he had renamed from the traditional DisCom because it would get confusing)? Or, Tsuna admitted sourly to himself, the mythical, non-existent "new power in Asia" group the mafia believed to have been created, but which was actually a total misunderstanding?

Mukuro was still smiling as he eyed his cup of tea. Unlike Hayato, he only picked up the cup gingerly and did not take even the smallest sip.

"The one you're in," Mukuro compromised neatly.

"So the Committee," Tsuna decided. "Okay. Do you have a place to stay? There's rooms here at the base, and the apartment manager down by the bank promised us a discount if we need it."

All three of their new recruits stared at Tsuna, who looked back with polite interest. He knew exactly what they were thinking - "Aren't you at least going to ask why we want to join? Who we actually are? Or where we came from?" - and he would admit to perhaps enjoying their befuddlement a little too much. Misery loves company, after all.

But Mukuro had too much self-control, and Ken and Chikusa were too well-trained to let Mukuro do the talking, for any of them to blurt out the questions on their minds. Thinking about it, Mukuro supposed this was a rather reasonable move - keeping them close while judging their usefulness.

"We'll be happy with a room here," he said. Two could play at the information gathering game.

~.~.~

"So, what are we going to do with them?" Tsuna asked later, as a full meeting of the Committee. "I mean, I set them up down the hall, and it's not really a problem for them to stay here, but they must have had a reason for coming to find us."

"They must be spies," Hayato said. "Saboteurs! Infiltrators! They might be hitmen after you, Boss!" There was definitely a certain irony in having him, of all people, say that.

"I still don't get why the mafia is so interested in us," Tsuna muttered.

"They afraid of your potential!" Hayato insisted. Fortunately, this time he didn't go on a rant about evil, backstabbing adults. Instead, he just added, "Lots of bosses and group leaders started going on about not letting it turn into a repeat of the first generation, whatever that means... "

Tsuna sighed. "I'll call Naito and ask if he knows anything," he said.

"How did they find us anyway?" Shoichi wondered reasonably. "I mean, everyone else just wanders blindly around Japan, but they definitely knew what they were looking for."

"Octopus-head found us too," Ryohei pointed out.

Hayato glared and just barely stopped himself from protesting against the nickname. It was hazing, he figured. He just had to endure it. He hated being the most junior member. "It wasn't hard," he said. "I just followed through with the information available."

He listened to what the Tomaso had said - they were no longer fighting for their own profit or to increase the power of their Family. No, now they fought to protect the peace in their territory and the safety of the people. And that ideal had come from their allies.

Thus, their allies must also oppose all disturbances to the peace - in other words, crime. Thus, the place where their allies were based had to be a place with incredibly low crime rate. And judging by how new their group was, and how fast their rise, that place would have experienced a sharp drop in disturbances.

Comparing all the information across Japan, Hayato easily identified Namimori.

From there, it was just a matter of looking for the Momokyokai, which might have been unknown to anyone in the criminal world, but which everyone in Namimori had heard of.

"My sincerest apologies, Boss! I was such a fool!" Hayato added, bowing so low he was almost folded in half. "I should have realized then and there that you were not the enemy! That you were the ones I should fight for!"

"That's... fine, really," Tsuna told him, almost reflexively now. "But do you think Mukuro did the same?"

Everyone could only shrug. Mukuro worked in mysterious ways.

"We can start having them help out with the requests. I'll partner them up with you guys, so show them the ropes," Tsuna decided. "And I guess we can enroll them in school." Because if he wasn't allowed to drop out, neither was anyone else. "They're about a year older than me, Takeshi, Hayato and Kyoko-can, so I guess they'll be going to Namimori Middle School, with Onii-san and Hibari-san..."

~.~.~

That... didn't work out too well, to put it mildly.

Oh, the enrolling part went fine. Namimori Middle wasn't all that stringent with the paperwork, which Tsuna suspected Mukuro lied on shamelessly, and in short order they were accepted in as transfer students. Puzzled by the sheer domesticity of it all - here is your room, do you need more blankets, don't forget to have lunch, did you sleep well, here's your school uniform - Mukuro played along.

Except that Hibari seemed to just hate him on principle. Really, Mukuro had only been using some basic hypnosis on a couple of girls to get some information, when in came the prefect, tonfas already swinging. This repeated six times in just the first day, not to mention Ken's extensive problems with authority figures and Chikusa blowing up the science lab.

Mukuro had some trouble pinning down the look Tsuna gave them when he came to get them from the school. (It was disappointment and guilt-trips.)

Actually, why exactly was a boy a year younger than them informed of all this, like a parent would have been?

"Going to school is an important formative experience," Tsuna said, sitting on one side of the coffee table at the base, while Mukuro, Ken and Chikusa sat on the other. This was what he had been told when he tried to skip school. "You can't just not go. You'll be stunting your growth as fully functioning individuals."

Calling any of them fully functioning individuals was hilariously inaccurate.

"Also," Tsuna added, "Hibari-san considers truancy the same as disrupting order."

Mukuro couldn't quite stop himself from making a face.

Hibari had also indicated, in no uncertain terms, that he wanted Mukuro and his friends out of Namimori - Hibari's territory - but Tsuna had put on his blandest look, the one that promised vindictive sadism and misery. It wouldn't be the Peaceful Namimori Committee if they weren't even in Namimori, he had insisted. And really, was Hibari-san saying he couldn't handle it? Well, Tsuna supposed they could arrange something...

Pride overcoming common sense, Hibari had insisted he could handle it and he would, in fact, turn that pineapple into a model herbivore citizen. Tsuna had smiled, very unsettlingly. (Hibari thought of elephants, or maybe hippos. Eats plants, herds a lot, can crush predators just by sitting on them. That last part was a little off, somehow, but still...)

They had finally found the one person who could drive Hibari absolutely insane. Like hell Tsuna was going to let pass this opportunity to spread the pain around. Now Hibari would know how Tsuna felt all the time, with all of his crazy friends.

As for Mukuro... well, he was far from the first weirdo Tsuna had to deal with.

"I have here the full list of prohibited behaviors," Tsuna said, heaving a massive stack of printouts onto the coffee table, which groaned under the weight. "Please study them closely. If you have any complaints about these rules, please submit a form to the Disciplinary Council. If Hibari pursues you when you have no committed any violations, please let me know and I'll talk to him. Do you have any questions?"

Ken raised a hand. "Are we gonna get more of those box lunches?" he asked. "'Cause I'll go to school or whatever, if it means I can have that every day." Chikusa nodded.

When Mukuro shot them a sharp look, they could only shrug. In their minds, it balanced out pretty well - nice bed, good food, daily threat of murder. Not a bad life, definitely a step up.

~.~.~

"Have they been causing any problems?" Tsuna asked the Momokyokai Kumi-chou later.

Kumi-chou frowned but shook his head. "Not exactly. That Mukuro kid is always poking around, asking questions, but nothing really bad. He sets the men on edge, that's all." He hesitated for a moment, until Tsuna's patient gaze convinced to go on. "The other two are just rough brats, we have plenty like that. But him? He's bad news. Be careful around him."

"I know," Tsuna smiled wryly. "I can tell. He's got the same look as all of you did, after the first time Hibari beat you. And the second time too, actually..." When they had come crawling back, pretending surrender just to get close enough for a chance to strike.

Kumi-chou coughed into his fist. "You're too kind, Leader," he said, refusing to blush under Tsuna's amused look. He was a hardened yakuza man! "But you might be on to something there. Maybe he'll change his tune after a few beatings from that Hibari."

Or rather, after getting beat up and being rescued by Tsuna. Compared to Hibari, anyone would look like a saintly savior. It was a life-changing experience, really.

"I was thinking of just taking him along on a few requests," Tsuna said mildly.

~.~.~

"And you just... help them, anyone who asks," Mukuro summarized, disbelieving and stunned almost beyond words. This thought did not compute. "...Why?"

Tsuna had been trying to explain to him that, aside from beating up bullies, criminals and gangs, the Peaceful Namimori Committee was also accepted any request for assistance from the people of their town. Whether getting groceries, moving furniture, painting buildings, managing events, babysitting or finding lost pets, they did it all.

Mostly, this was because Tsuna was number one least able to turn down a request, and he had sort of dragged everyone along. Needless to say, the Momokyokai had not been very happy the first time Tsuna had asked them to help set up the annual picnic for his mom's Foreign Cuisine Club. Of course, with Hibari standing right behind Tsuna, his expression of pure anticipation for the moment they gave him an excuse to beat them up again, the Momokyokai hadn't had much choice.

(After getting plenty of delicious leftovers from the picnic, the former yakuza had been a lot more enthusiastic.)

"W-well, it's all part of protecting the peace in Namimori," Tsuna said quickly.

"...Keeping control of your territory, then," Mukuro muttered to himself. "And what do you ask for in return? What's your fee?"

"Fee? It's not like that," Tsuna sighed. "Really, you're just like the Momokyokai... We don't ask for anything. Sometimes people give us something, or they just say they owe us a favor, but that's all. Like the restaurant down the street giving us a big discount, or the city forgiving the utilities we owe them. Or all the fruits and vegetable we get from people. Actually, we're getting lots of donations now too..." Remembering how that word confused the Momokyokai, he quickly added, "But they're really donations, not a code word for extortion!"

"Building a network of indebted individuals," Mukuro continued to mutter. "Hmm... not a bad approach. A bit soft, though."

"I feel like you're getting the wrong idea," Tsuna said. "Anyway, maybe you'll understand better once you see it first hand. We just got a request, actually. It's from a girl who often comes to us. Her cat keeps running away, and we help her look for it. It kept happening, so we put a tracking chip in its collar. It'll be very easy..."

~.~.~

"Can you see him?" Nagi asked, tugging tentatively on Tsuna's sleeve. She shot a worried look at Mukuro, who had been hovering in the background ever since the two Committee members met up with the girl. Ostensibly, it was to better observe his "sempai" on the job, but mostly so he would be better positioned to give creepy smiles and run if it proved necessary.

Sighing a little, Tsuna tilted the screen of his phone toward her. It showed the location of the tracker they had placed in her cat's collar after the fifth time she approached the Momokyokai to find her beast of a pet.

How a sweet, high-class "ojou-sama" girl like Nagi ended up with that massive orange monster, Tsuna had no idea. She must have picked it up off the street, and the cat seemed quite eager to return to its previous lifestyle, given how often it ran away.

"Just around this corner," Tsuna assured her.

They turned the corner... and stared.

"Um," Ken said, all but covered in cats. In particular, Nagi's orange beast was sprawled across his lap. He tried to glare, as if warning them to make one comment - just one! - about his affinity for animals, but it was really a wasted effort. It was hard to be threatening while covered in a fuzzy, purring mass.

Clapping her hands together, Nagi made a joyous exclamation and ran up to Ken, who jumped, then winced as her orange monster dug its claws into his legs.

"How did you get him so calm?" Nagi wondered, hooking both hands around her pet's middle and trying to lift it. The cat didn't budge.

"I see. So that's why all the strays have been looking so fat recently," Tsuna commented. "You've been feeding them?"

Ken scowled. Mukuro tried to hide a snicker, but not very hard.

"What a touching reunion," Mukuro said, smirking. "I suppose this makes it our first successful mission. We should celebrate."

He was probably making fun of them, but Tsuna just smiled and said, "Sure. What would you like for dinner?" Pointedly, he turned to Ken, since Mukuro had done exactly nothing to help.

But their victory celebrations were premature. Growing tired of Nagi's attempts to cuddle, the orange monster yowled and made a break for freedom once more. Nagi gave a startled cry as the cat leaped out of her arms and began to race away.

"Wait!" Nagi called after it, giving chase.

"Nagi! Be careful!" Tsuna yelled, scrambling after her.

Breaking the fundamental rules all children are taught - don't play in the street, look both ways - cat, girl and boy all rushed out into the road, which a moment before had been empty. A horn blared and tires squealed, a truck suddenly looming over them.

Following its animal instincts, the cat had frozen; Nagi, catching up to it, had only time to throw her arms around the orange beast and squeeze her eyes shut; Tsuna, bringing up behind them, could only watch, reaching out futilely, as the truck bore down on girl and cat, too fast to stop or avoid. He knew, in a single horrifying instance, that he wouldn't make it in time.

And then...

He could barely believe it, but Tsuna was sure of what he saw. Just before it could hit Nagi and the cat, the truck was suddenly engulfed in a web of... lotus vines, which pulled it sideways, off its path and straight into a street light.

Running to Nagi's side and kneeling next to the shocked, shaking girl, Tsuna spared a glance at the crashed truck. The lotus vines had disappeared, but he was sure he had seen them. Some instinct made him look over his shoulder. Ken was on his feet, the cats that had been clinging to him having scattered, and his gaze shifted between Tsuna and Nagi, the crashed truck, and Mukuro.

Mukuro lowered his hand slowly and met Tsuna's eyes. From so far away, Tsuna couldn't read his expression - unease, annoyance, anticipation?

Inwardly, Tsuna sobbed. What was this sudden fantasy genre shift?

On the outside, he smiled. "Thanks," he mouthed simply. Mukuro turned away.

Fortunately, Nagi was uninjured aside from a scrapped knee, but Tsuna stayed with her as the police arrived and all through the following questioning. When all attempts to call her parents were met with failure, he firmly maneuvered her over to the Momokyokai building. They had plenty of spare mattresses, after all, even with their new members.

Mukuro and Ken were already there, Ken demanding peppermint chicken and pineapple souffle for dinner. Tsuna let him have his way. Amusingly, Nagi kept glancing at Mukuro and then quickly looking away. Mukuro made sure to meet her eyes every fourth glance and smile, which made Nagi turn bright red without fail.

Between Ryohei challenging Ken to an eating contest and Hibari suddenly declaring he hated pineapples, both of which led to food all other the floor, walls and ceiling, Tsuna never actually got around to asking what Mukuro had done.

When he remembered about it in the morning, he couldn't find it in himself to even be surprised. Compared to Hibari's continued and repeated inhuman feats, magically appearing and disappearing plant life wasn't particularly traumatizing.

More to the point, it seemed they finally had someone with the right... talents for all those lost cat finding missions. Tsuna made a note to himself to assign them all to Ken.

Ken complained, at first, but the sweet grandmas who generally requested them fed him quite well, so he got over it quickly.

~.~.~

Mukuro kept his smile firm, through every stupid, useless mission he was given. He could endure this. He had endured much worse. But he couldn't help but feel he was being mocked.

Why were they wasting their time with all this community service? Because that's what it was. Just petty volunteer work, which rarely had any tangible payoff. Even the ones that were legitimate paying jobs - usually something like contracts from the city to help with events or from stores for heavy labor - were all so small, so meaningless that Mukuro found himself gritting his teeth in frustration.

And that wasn't even taking the farce of "school" into account. ...Well, actually, that one was kind of amusing, if only for the vindictive pleasure he got from seeing how close he could drive Hibari to the edge of his tolerance. (Very close; very, very close.)

Trying to understand what was going on - just what kind of group had he joined? - Mukuro asked the Momokyokai members. They were yakuza, thugs, the dregs of society, surely they weren't pleased with this goody two shoes benevolent nonsense.

But all of them just... accepted it. They grumbled about it at first, but then they elbowed each other and laughed too.

Mukuro didn't understand it.

(What happened to the robot army?)

He didn't want to admit how long it had taken him to work up the nerve to venture into the research and development part of the base, which Tsuna had pointed out to them on the first day. Of course, Shoichi's workshop was nothing like the Estraneo labs. Despite all indications to the contrary, both Hibari and Ryohei came by their insane abilities naturally.

Shoichi was certainly brilliant, but none of his project were even slightly aimed at gaining more power or building a better weapon. He didn't seem even slightly interested in that.

What were they doing? What were they doing all this for?

"We didn't really like it at first either," one of the Momokyokai members told him, in a quiet moment. "You know, all this silly helping people stuff. We thought, we're yakuza! We're too great for that. But... after a while, we just kept on doing it, even when Leader didn't tell us to. We got used to it. And, eh, how to say it... it's not bad. We didn't want to go back to the old days anymore. I guess... we didn't want to lose the smiles people give us now. It's nice, you know?"

Because things had changed. When they walked down the street now, no one cowered away or eyed them mistrustfully. The townspeople greeted them with smiles and respect.

"The smiles people give us..." Mukuro repeated to himself. "What useless nonsense."

~.~.~

"Okay... I see..." Tsuna said into the phone. "Yes. Thanks, Naito. I'll keep that in mind."

He had finally gotten a response from the Tomaso regarding Mukuro and his allies - the whole sordid tale. Naito had even managed to get some of their people to pick up Lancia before the rest of the mafia could and find out the true depth of Mukuro's abilities - and his cruelty.

"What are you going to do?" Naito asked, his voice unusually solemn.

"I wonder..." Tsuna muttered, looking up at the night sky. "Keep an eye on him, I guess. He's our responsibility now."

Closing his phone, Tsuna sighed. He supposed it was time to act like a leader.

~.~.~

Mukuro knew the moment Tsuna came to see him that the cat was out of the bag. It was obvious in the way the boy looked at him, even if Mukuro couldn't quite read the emotion in his eyes.

Ruffling his hair awkwardly, Tsuna tried to think how to start the conversation.

"You've been here a couple months now," he said finally. "How are you settling in? Do you like it?"

But Mukuro wasn't about to let him lead the conversation. He needed to seize the initiative for himself. "That's not what you want to talk about," Mukuro said, smirking. "What you really want to ask about are our intentions... right?"

"Kind of?" Tsuna said, frowning bemusedly. "I mean, are you planning to stay? This probably isn't what you were expecting."

"I see no reason to leave," Mukuro declared. He still hadn't found the robot army, after all. And if nothing else, the Vindice would have trouble tracking them to such a dull, obscure place.

Ken and Chikusa seemed content as well. Maybe too content, Mukuro thought, his mouth twisting.

"That's fine, then," Tsuna said. "But if that's the case, there's something I wanted to talk to you about. Even if you're part of our group, there are things we can't allow. That's true even for Hibari-san, and it's true for you as well."

'So basically, don't go acting like you did in Italy,' Mukuro mused, smirking without humor. "I'm not sure I understand," he drawled, with only the most cursory attempt at pretense. "Could you explain it better? We wouldn't want to have a misunderstanding, after all."

Tsuna thought for several long moments before giving his answer. "I suppose there's just one rule," he said finally. "It's like this: Always fight to protect. That's what we do. We fight to protect. The town, your friends or yourself, whatever you value. But never forget that that's the reason. Don't lose sight of it."

It sounded simple. Too simple. There had to be something else, right? Even a fool deluded on his own ideals would see the flaws in such a simple thing.

"...I don't understand you," Mukuro admitted. He hadn't meant to say it, but somehow the words slipped out. "I can just say that all I did was to protect myself. That kind of rule is meaningless." It wasn't even a restriction, not the way it was stated. There were too many ways around it.

"You're right," Tsuna said. "That's true for everyone. I just have to trust them to follow the meaning of it. I trust all our members, and I'll trust you too. And if you fight to protect yourself - if you value yourself, that's fine. I'm glad to hear it. You're part of our group, so we'll protect you too. ...Though I guess that doesn't mean much coming from a wimp like me..."

His smile was terribly honest, and Mukuro couldn't tell if he was just a fool or the most cunning, dangerous person he'd ever met.

"I'll try it out," Mukuro said, turning away. "This protecting thing."

It was barely a promise, and even weaker than Tsuna so-called "rule." And it would hardly be the first time Mukuro had lied, right?

~.~.~

It was a long time before Mukuro understood the meaning and logic behind Tsuna's request.

You can fight to protect yourself, your pawns, your power, your goals. On the outside, it looks just the same. If you declare everyone your enemy, than killing them all is just a form of protecting too, right?

But if you fight to protect, you can't fight for revenge. You can't fight with the thought of hating this world.

Just closing that door with a few words made Tsuna's "rule" stronger than any chain or lock.

~.~.~

Tsuna spit out his tea when Mukuro walked in one day, followed by Nagi - her hair now in a horribly familiar pineapple shape.

So much for his five month record of handling things calmly and without any beverage failure.

"I've taken dear Nagi as my apprentice," Mukuro announced to the lobby at large. "Please call her Chrome from now on."

"So you finally asked him? Nice!" Takeshi congratulated the girl.

Nagi nodded, ducking her head as she fidgeted embarrassedly. "It's just... Mukuro-sama looked so cool when he did that..." she mumbled. "That" being making physically improbable lotus plants appear out of thin air and then disappear again.

Come to think of it, Tsuna had never gotten around to asking about it.

"You're nicer than you look, Pineapple-head!" Ryohei declared.

"That hair style looks really cute on you, Nagi-chan," Kyoko added, beaming. "Or, hm, Chrome-chan?"

"It's Mukuro-sama's requirement," Nagi explained. "Like a uniform. The name too..."

"Wait, does this mean she's joining too?" Hayato asked.

Hibari didn't comment, either too indifferent or too horrified. Shoichi had fallen asleep sitting upright, the result of another all-nighter.

Ken was too busy choking on a biscuit - Tsuna suddenly felt a bit better about his own mishap - while Chikusa pounded him on the back obligingly.

Mukuro smiled benevolently - or perhaps smugly.

~.~.~


	5. Vongola

~.~.~

**Title:** Vigilante Tendency

**Summary:** Vongola meets their future Decimo. He even comes with his own Guardians, alliances, and leadership experience. Whether this is a good thing remains to be seen.

**Notes: **Last chapter. It's been fun, you guys!

~.~.~

From the beginning, it felt like Vongola was playing catch-up when it came to their own successor.

"Hey, you haven't gone to see Tsuna-nii yet, right?" asked a handsome teenager who introduced himself as Lambo Bovino after he showed up at the Vongola headquarters out of the blue one day.

"..." Iemitsu said. It was more of a stunned silence, really. He and Nono hadn't even told anyone about Tsuna's existence yet!

In a way, that was very indicative of how things would go, from there on out.

"Unless I am mistaken, Lambo Bonvino is only five years old," Nono said, folding his hands over his cane and studying the teenager thoughtfully. "Then, are you here through the Ten Year Bazooka?"

It was a good thing the old man was so canny. It spared everyone an entire discussion about why Lambo even knew about the heir Vongola hadn't even decided on having.

It wasn't precisely right, but a very good guess.

"Kinda?" Lambo offered, making a face. "The Bazooka is supposed to switch you with your self from ten years in the future for five minutes, but my Family tried to upgrade it. There was a bit of an accident, and it permanently shifted my personal timeline ten years forward... Well, let's just say I aged up ten years, for good. It's been a bit weird."

It was more than a bit weird, actually, but Lambo had learned to just go with things, after ten years with Tsuna and the others.

"Actually, that's why I'm here," he said. "I figured I might as well go with you when you go to meet Tsuna-nii. I always did wish I'd seen how things went from the start." He sighed a little. "Though I'm still gonna be the last one to join..."

"Very well," Nono decided, ignoring Iemitsu's confused protests. He smiled at the teenager. It was a smile that had made many men spill all their secrets, but Lambo had spent a decade with Tsuna, so he only smiled mildly in return. "I must say, I would be very interested in hearing your story - about your extra ten years." In other words, information about the future.

Lambo shrugged. "I dunno," he said. "I don't remember much. Plus, I wasn't around for the very beginning, and the world of ten years from now is really, really, _really_ different. I mean, I barely recognize Vongola. Tsuna-nii and the others moved really fast, I guess..."

That was somewhat ominous.

"I heard from Hayato-nii and Takeshi-nii that it was kind of messy for a while. You might want to go in person to explain this. Just... as a suggestion," Lambo said added. "Tsuna-nii and the others have their own circumstances too. And you probably shouldn't let them be out of your sight so much. They always pull something crazy when you're not looking."

He actually didn't know how the "original timeline" introduction to Vongola had gone, since everyone he asked inevitably groaned and covered their eyes as if remembering something terrible. All Lambo remembered from back when he was five involved the entire mafia society running around in a panic.

Also, robots. Something about robots.

~.~.~

They compromised and called first. Despite the way Lambo shook his head in resignation, it was decided to proceed with the original plan - having Reborn head over first as a tutor for Tsuna.

But Iemitsu did agree to make the recommendation to Nana himself, if only for the excuse to talk to his wife again.

"A tutor for Tsu-kun?" Nana repeated.

"Yes! He's very good!" Iemitsu said, gritting his teeth a little as Reborn smirked at him. "He'll turn Tsuna into a leader for the new generation!"

"Hmm... that does sound nice," Nana said, but before they could celebrate, she added, "I don't think it'll work out though. Sorry, dear."

Iemitsu sputtered.

"Tsu-kun's grades could use some work, but I don't really care about things like that," Nana went on. "I just want him to be happy. And he really is! If we hire him a tutor, Tsu-kun won't have time for his friends anymore, and that'll just make him miserable. I think he's just fine the way he is."

Iemitsu made a choking sound.

"It was a nice thought, dear," Nana added sympathetically. "I'll tell Tsu-kun you called."

Stunned, he was left staring at the phone.

~.~.~

Tsuna looked at his father, then at the teenager sitting next to him, then at the toddler across from him.

"You better not be here to tell us you cheated on Mom," he said, "and that I have half-siblings."

Reborn and Iemitsu simultaneously choked on their own spit. Lambo buried his head in his hands and tried to muffle his laughter. "T-Tsuna-nii, that's just... haha," he muttered.

Needless to say, that suffix only made Tsuna's glare sharpen.

"Don't be like that, Tsuna-nii," Lambo said, regaining some measure of self-control. "I'm not related to that guy at all. I'm here to join your group." His smile had the impression of someone enjoying an inside joke - and also finally succeeding at something that had evaded him for a long while.

Lambo was beginning to realize there were certain upsides to his situation. For example, he was now older than Hayato, which he fully intended to rub in his face. They couldn't exclude him for being a kid anymore either. This whole thing was not half-bad, he thought.

Tsuna didn't even bother looking surprised. "Okay," he said. Can't be worse than Mukuro, he reasoned.

Finally able to restart his thought processes from an impressive system crash, Reborn immediately began to calculate who to kill first. The kid, for such a terrible idea? The cow, for witnessing?

No, there was only one person to blame.

"Iemitsu," Reborn said slowly, a gun appearing in either hand, "you're dead."

~.~.~

It was lucky for everyone that Nana had been out shopping with Fuuta.

~.~.~

Iemitsu, despite all signs to the contrary, was actually a very competent, powerful, skilled individual - enough so to survive Reborn's earnest efforts to kill him, at least long enough for Reborn regain some semblance of self control.

However, just doing so took all of Iemitsu's power, which led to several unfortunate things. One, half the house getting demolished. Two, revealing his Flames to Tsuna.

"I didn't realize men of the earth who directed traffic at construction sites could generate fire on their foreheads," Tsuna noted blandly, as he rather undelicately pulled a long splinter of wood out of Iemitsu's back. "I guess that would be very helpful when working at the South Pole with the penguins."

Reborn snorted. Maybe he might be able to forgive the kid for his stupid assumption. After all, it wasn't Tsuna's fault his father was such a useless, questionable individual.

"They're Dying Will Flames. It's like a mafia thing," Lambo said, reappearing from wherever he had gotten off to. Iemitsu glared, but Lambo ignored him easily.

"Mafia," Tsuna repeated, pulling out another splinter. His brow furrowed in a way every Committee member would have recognized.

"Oh yeah," Lambo went on, blithely. He had picked up some unfortunate traits from Tsuna ten years in the future - including a certain measure of sadistic vindictiveness. "He's in the mafia, in the CEDEF, which is kind of like part of Vongola, the largest mafia family in the world. It was actually founded by your great-great... great-grandfather," he nodded to himself, making sure the generations were correct, "but as a vigilante group, which became a mafia family later. Since you're descended from the first leader, they want you to take over as the next boss."

At that, even Tsuna had to pause in what he was doing and turn to look at Lambo with some disbelief.

"It's true," Lambo said, shrugging.

Tsuna turned to look at Reborn, who also shrugged. "I was hired by the current boss to tutor you," he added.

Tsuna turned back to Iemitsu, who pointedly continued to look away.

"I'm... going to think about this," Tsuna said, slapping a final bandage onto his father's back with more force than strictly necessary.

"Are you going to the base? I'm coming too!" Lambo called out as Tsuna quickly left the house.

~.~.~

"A mafia boss!" Tsuna repeated, disbelief finally settling in properly, after he arrived at the base and made the necessary calls. "A mafia boss? Is this an actual thing? I can't believe it!"

"Boss..? Of Vongola? Decimo? Juudaime?" Gokudera was muttering to himself, unhelpfully.

Mukuro, the only other one who had direct experience in mafia, had started chuckling in a very unnerving way. Even Ken and Chikusa were shooting him uneasy looks.

"I know, right? A pipsqueak like you? Taking over the bloody, brutal Vongola Family?" Ken said around a mouthful of cookie.

Chikusa nodded. "Unexpected," he agreed.

"What're ya talkin' about?! This is totally great!" came Naito's insistent voice over the phone, left on speaker in the middle of the table. "I know Tsuna'll turn them around and make into a force of good! This is perfect! I knew from the start you were an amazing guy, Tsuna! Related to the great Vongola Primo, that's definitely something!"

"I didn't know Tsuna's grandpa was a foreigner," Takeshi commented.

"Great-great... great grandfather," Lambo corrected him.

"That's not the point here!" Tsuna berated them.

"Are you a new member?" Ryohei guessed, ignoring Tsuna to focus on Lambo. "Extremely nice to meet you! I'm Sasagawa Ryohei, captain of the Nami-Middle Boxing Club!"

"I know. It's nice to meet you again, Onii-san," Lambo said. "I'm Lambo Bovino."

"Bovino? I heard they have some pretty crazy stuff," Spanner commented from Naito's end.

"Yeah, like a Bazooka that summons a ten years later version of you," Lambo said. "But they don't have it anymore."

Momentarily distracted, Tsuna turned to stare at him in narrow-eyed suspicion.

"Ah, if you don't mind, I'd like to be your Lightning Guardian again," Lambo added.

Mukuro finally burst into the full, cackling maniacal laughter that had been building in his chest. Hibari tried to plant a tonfa in his face, and it just degenerated from there.

~.~.~

Iemitsu and Reborn waited on the doorstep of what remained of the Sawada house. It was the single most uncomfortable experience of Iemitsu's life, in part because he was sure Reborn was still contemplating whether to kill him after all.

"So!" Iemitsu blurted out, trying to break the heavy silence. "What do you think of Tsuna?"

"That poor kid," Reborn said, "having to deal with you. Maybe I should cut him some slack. He definitely deserves it."

They still hadn't quite caught on to how out of their depth they really were. That would change soon enough.

Things didn't get any more comfortable, but they soon got quite a bit stranger, as people began to arrive at the house. First, a group of middle school students with delinquent pompadours. Their leader, who introduced himself as Kusakabe Tetsuya, offered Iemitsu a professional nod and a card, which turned out to be a key from an expensive hotel downtown.

"Mama and Fuuta are staying at a suite, which she believes she won in a lottery," the teenager reported. "We will handle repairs in the meantime. Please avoid causing further disturbances to the peace in Namimori, or we will be forced to carry out disciplinary actions."

This pseudo-threat was delivered with an impressively smooth, straight face.

Then, a bunch of petty criminal types - to Iemitsu's experienced eyes - quickly surveyed the site and started making calls.

Following them, a construction crew that moved to clear away the rubble and start clean up with the speed and skill of long experience in "emergency" renovations.

It was... it was a lot like watching a Vongola follow-up operation.

"Whose men are those guys?" Iemitsu muttered to himself, frowning. "I didn't think there was any major group operating in Namimori."

"We are the Namimori Middle School Disciplinary Council," Kusakabe said helpfully. Gesturing to the criminal-looking types, he added, "They are from the Momokyokai. Leader contacted us to handle this situation."

"Leader? Who is your boss?" Iemitsu demanded.

"The head of the Disciplinary Council is Hibari Kyoya," Kusakabe answered, except of course he was being purposefully misleading.

"Oh, him," Iemitsu sighed in relief. "I remember him. The bite to death boy. Well, thanks for your help!"

Iemitsu went back to grinning idiotically, but Reborn was not nearly as much of a simpleton. He had easily noticed that evasive answer, and his eyes narrowed as he studied Kusakabe. Kusakabe smiled back blandly. It was kind of impressive. Not many in the mafia could fall under his attention without cowering.

Namimori was beginning to seem like a surprisingly interesting place. Maybe his student would be equally surprising...

(Be careful what you wish for. Seriously.)

~.~.~

Tsuna didn't turn up until the next day, but when he did, it was with Lambo and six other teenagers in tow.

Given what Iemitsu had told Reborn - or rather what Reborn had inferred from Iemitsu's endless whining and moaning about his son's habits - this was hardly unexpected. If the boy spent all his time out with his friends, and his mother considered them the cornerstone of his happiness, it was only natural he'd tell them and bring them over for emotional support.

It even looked like they were in it for the long haul, overnight bags and everything.

"It's about time," Reborn said, though he refrained from firing off a warning shot. For now. "Let's get down to business. As the cow brat said," he paused to shoot Lambo a sharp look for being so careless with his words, "you are to be trained as the next boss of the Vongola Family."

"Okay," Tsuna said. "We'll be heading out in a bit. Our flight's in a couple of hours."

There was a profound silence.

"Your... your flight?" Iemitsu parroted helplessly.

"To Italy," Tsuna said, turning to him with a blank, guileless look. "That's where it's based, right? We're going to talk to the current boss about how to handle everything. Oh, and Lambo told me about the rings, so these are going to be my Guardians."

He gestured to his friends and Lambo, who had apparently succeeded in securing his once and future spot, despite Hayato's still disgruntled glower. It helped that their group apparently had no other Lightning Flame users. On the other hand, Ryohei had declared that the Sun Guardian position would be decided through combat. Shoichi had quickly conceded, but Kyoko had looked like she was willing to throw down, until Tsuna managed to convince her to stay behind to manage the Committee and the Momokyokai.

She would keep them well in line, he was certain, with help from Kusakabe and the Disciplinary Council.

"Your... your Guardians?" Iemitsu repeated. It was starting to irritate Reborn.

"And my apprentice," Mukuro added, patting Nagi on the head. "She's in the middle of training, and I can't leave her alone right now." He was already regretfully leaving Ken and Chikusa behind. He hoped they didn't gain too much weight while he was away.

"What about her parents?" Tsuna whispered, leaning toward him.

Mukuro shrugged. "We tried to contact them," so Mukuro could brainwash them a little, "but we couldn't get in touch with them at all. So they probably won't even notice."

Given that they either hadn't noticed or hadn't cared that Nagi was all but living at the base with Mukuro already, Tsuna supposed that was a fair point.

"But... but... What about school?!" Iemitsu flailed. He had expected any number of reactions, but this... go-to gung-ho attitude was not one of them. In reality, Tsuna wasn't so much gung-ho as resigned, but Iemitsu wasn't nearly skilled enough at judging his emotions to tell.

"We're having a family emergency," Tsuna said.

"All of you?" Iemitsu said dubiously.

Tsuna shrugged. He suspected he was the only who bothered contacting the school at all. Hibari, Takeshi, Hayato and Ryohei apparently felt that informing their institutions of learning was unnecessary. Half of them barely bothered telling their parents - and Hayato existed in a perpetual state of telling his father exactly nothing about his life.

Tsuna could relate. He hadn't exactly told his father about the whole crimefighting and making alliances with a mafia family parts yet. It was bound to turn out... interesting.

"I think," Reborn said, somewhere between maliciously enjoying Iemitsu's suffering and rather off balance himself, "Nono will be happy to meet him."

And that was the end of that.

~.~.~

Nono was happy to meet him.

"You've grown so much, Tsunayoshi!" the old man marveled. "Look at you! Still as lovely as your mother, but I must say, you take after your ancestor as well!"

Tsuna smiled politely, not entirely sure what to say to that. This... this must be what having grandparents is like, he thought. Embarrassing, but somehow kind of nice.

"I'm also happy to hear that you are so... enthusiastic about taking over Vongola," Nono continued. "I had been somewhat concerned that it might be a great shock to you, to learn of your heritage..."

"It's not the weirdest thing that's happened to me," Tsuna said honestly. "And it's not like this is my first time hearing about the mafia."

"Oh?" Nono inquired with a smile.

"Well, Hayato's from a mafia family," Tsuna said. "And Mukuro. And Naito. They told me a lot about Vongola, actually."

The particularly calm, even intonation Tsuna used would have sent every Committee and Momokyokai member cringing in preemptive guilt, but none were present, and Nono only continued to smile, filing away the names for future reference.

"The most ruthless mafia family, an empire built upon corpses," Tsuna continued, very calmly, "steeped in blood and sin. Yes, I heard a lot of stories about Vongola."

Oddly, Nono didn't have a bad feeling about this at all. If anything, his intuition seemed content to curl up and let everything move along at its own pace.

Tsuna smiled, and Nono had to admire how diplomatic, bland and yet uncompromising the expression looked. "It's a great opportunity," he said, "to deal with this. Also, I guess I don't really have much choice. I doubt you'd just go away if I refused."

"...Ah, well, yes," Nono admitted, to the last part. Even he had been a little thrown off his game by the blatant guilt-slinging. "Vongola must have a successor, and you're the only remaining candidate..."

"Because this CEDEF thing disqualifies Dad," Tsuna noted, taking a sip of his tea. He swirled it in his cup thoughtfully, the European brand a little strange to his palette. Then, nodding to himself, he said, "I'm not going to become a mafia boss. Ever."

He said it so matter-of-factly that it took Nono a moment to realize the full meaning. But before he could formulate a response, Tsuna continued.

"That's fine. I mean, it wouldn't be the first time a criminal organization reforms and works toward peaceful goals instead. The Tomaso did it, and the Momokyokai," Tsuna said. "So Vongola can do it too. Lambo did say it used to be a vigilante group, after all. So it'll just be returning to its roots."

Finishing his tea, Tsuna set the cup down and smiled.

"So what do I need to do to become Vongola Decimo? Is there a ceremony? A test?" he asked. "Lambo only told me about the Guardians and mentioned seven rings..."

"..." Nono said, for the first time in about four decades.

Vongola was always playing catch up when it came to their heir, mostly because he always seemed to skip three steps ahead and two steps to the side of where they expected him to be.

~.~.~

His life had turned even crazier than ever before, with no likelihood of ever going back to normal and peaceful, but Tsuna was enjoying himself. True, it was mostly a sort of "if I'm going to down, I'm taking you all with me" mentality, but still enjoyable.

And, well, that's what his father got for missing most of his life. And what the rest of Vongola got for just thinking they could drag someone else into their nonsense.

Everyone had their own circumstances, after all. And Tsuna's circumstances included experience with managing very unmanageable people, and a tendency toward vigilantism.

~.~.~

"We can always just kill them all," Mukuro suggested helpfully, several times. Many times. All the time.

"Thank you, I'll keep that in mind," Tsuna replied. He meant it sarcastically. Most of the group would have missed it, but judging by Mukuro's smile he understood. And proceeded to ignore it.

"Think of it as protecting your sanity," Mukuro suggested. "And, you know, all those poor innocent civilians who would be hurt by Vongola's continued existence of blood and sin."

"Thanks," Tsuna repeated. "I'll keep that in mind."

It did, admittedly, sound pretty tempting at times.

~.~.~

Reborn sulked for a while.

How was he supposed to train someone so used to weird, crazy antics? Not to mention that Tsuna was apparently already very good at deflecting attacks on his person, at managing his Family, at managing large criminally-inclined groups, at making alliances, at smiling and stabbing people in the gut verbally... basically, everything Nono wanted in a successor, including a tendency toward Primo-like vigilante nonsense.

It was depressing. What was he even here for?

And then he found Tsuna and Mukuro in the private garden, staring dubiously at the rings Tsuna had basically swiped from Iemitsu's possession and Nono's office while they were too busy feeling stunned by his decidedly non-civilian responses, and trying to figure out how to light their Flames through them. Mukuro could do it, of course, but Tsuna was clearly not understanding the illusionist's explanations.

Probably that was because Mukuro's explanations were based on his own experience, which worked through illusions - and also multiple deaths.

"...your insides rupturing from the overwhelming heat," Mukuro was saying.

"I don't think I can do that," Tsuna said, his face rather pale and faintly green in disgust. "Isn't there a simpler way?"

"Sure," Reborn said, inwardly pouting when neither of them jumped in surprise. Being behind Tsuna, he didn't see the narrowed eyed look of 'great, another weirdo' on his face. "There's a very simple way. I can shoot you in the head."

"And how is that going to help?" Tsuna asked, taking him completely seriously. It was annoying. Had this kid really lived a quiet life in the suburbs? (It was a suburb that was also inhabited by Hibari. No one came out normal after that.)

"Ah, Vongola's famous Dying Will Bullets?" Mukuro guessed after a moment of thought. "That might work, I suppose." For Tsuna's benefit, he explained, "The way I heard it, you get shot in the head, and the bullet artificially invokes your Flames into the so-called Dying Will Mode, using your regrets."

Reborn forced down a scowl. Why was everyone taking over his lines? He had wanted to explain it himself, in a much more exciting way.

Tsuna looked between Mukuro, who had already offered to put him through an illusion that would perfectly simulate one of his gruesome deaths-reincarnations-paths-whatever, and Reborn, who was offering to just shoot him.

"Headshot it is," Tsuna decided, nodding to himself.

"You know, you're kind of a killjoy," Reborn muttered, readying his Leon-gun.

~.~.~

Apparently, Tsuna's greatest regret was not letting everyone know just how annoying he found their nonsense. So he proceeded to do so. Loudly. From the roof of the mansion, with Leon in convenient megaphone shape.

Hibari plugged his ears and ignored him. Hayato groveled and begged forgiveness almost as loudly. Ryohei tore off his shirt and tried to follow Tsuna's example. Takeshi cheered them on.

Lambo hid in the basement. He knew, logically, that thirteen year old Tsuna, using his Flames for the first time, couldn't deal out the sort of Heaven's Wrath retribution his future self resorted to when pushed too far. But that knowledge could not outweigh the memory of Tsuna flying above the mansion and shooting off X Burners at anything that moved as he yelled something about how, if he was going to drown in damage assessment paperwork, it was going to be for damage he caused himself.

"Oya, oya," Mukuro muttered, while covering Nagi's eyes. Privately, Nagi wasn't entirely sure why he bothered, given that she had walked in on Ken and Chikusa enough times to know what a naked male looked like. And Boss was even still in his boxers.

When the five minutes ran out, Tsuna promptly tripped off the roof.

~.~.~

Falling several stories down onto your head counted as a life or death experience, no matter how thick your skull. And when you had one of those, while wearing the Vongola Boss's ring, that could lead to some... interesting encounters.

Tsuna absolutely refused to reveal what had occurred during his meeting with the spirits of the previous bosses. Or how he had managed to pass. (Primo. It was Primo's fault.)

"He lectured them," Lambo guessed.

"He definitely lectured them," Takeshi agreed, laughing.

"He extremely scolded them for their mistaken ways," Ryohei nodded along, arms crossed.

"Herbivore disciplining methods," Hibari muttered, but he looked entirely too pleased.

"Juudaime is the greatest boss!" Hayato insisted.

"I did no such thing!" Tsuna protested. "And in any case, they definitely deserved it!"

"He absolutely lectured them," Mukuro confirmed, Nagi nodding along. "But do you see now why we should just kill them all?"

Iemitsu sobbed, far beyond words by that point.

"Lecturing the past Vongola bosses, that's a bit much," even Reborn was forced to admit.

Tsuna was full of regret. He almost wished he'd just get shot again.

~.~.~

When the Tomaso Family showed up at the Vongola Decimo's Inheritance Ceremony, the entire mafia society collectively held its breath.

"Yo! Tsuna! Sorry it took so long!" Naito exclaimed, spreading his arms and going in for a hug.

As Tsuna allowed himself to be embraced and gingerly patted Naito on the back, everyone watching collectively cringed. Someone - several someones - passed out from the shock.

"Pops insisted on getting all this paperwork because we need to make a 'proper' alliance, pfft," Naito complained, rolling his eyes. "But it's great, isn't it? Now we can make it all official! Let's bring our Families together to fight for peace!"

"..." said the mafia world.

~.~.~

That was only the first shocking thing, with many more to come. Many, many more.

It wasn't the First Generation, second coming. It was so much worse.

~.~.~

After the fifth time Nono sighed, Tsuna had to close his eyes so Nono couldn't see him rolling them.

"Is something the matter, Grandpa?" Tsuna asked mildly. "Are you feeling alright? I could have Hayato help you back."

Nono smiled at all the things Tsuna managed to imply with a few diplomatic-sounding sentences - Why are you bothering me? It better be good. You old man.

"It's nothing like that," Nono assured him. He hesitated for a moment, looking down into his teacup with a sad smile. "It's just... today is the anniversary. It's been eight years since the Varia's attempted coup..."

"The Varia," Tsuna repeated. He made a face, remembering the long haired young man who had glared murderously at him all through the Inheritance Ceremony.

"That was the substitute leader, Squalo," Nono explained. "The real leader..."

Tsuna gave in to the urge to facepalm once he heard the full story. Wasn't there a limit to miscommunication and bad parenting? Still, there was only one thing to do.

~.~.~

"Urgh, another filthy mafioso," Mukuro complained, as the seven of them gathered in front of giant piece of ice.

"Are you sure about this?" Takeshi wondered

"We're going to have to unfreeze him at some point," Tsuna said, sighing. "Or what do you suggest? We wait two years to make it a round decade?" At the thoughtful silence that followed, he glared. "We're not waiting two years."

"But, Juudamie! What if he challenges you?" Hayato fussed.

"Then I guess Reborn's stupid training will come in handy," Tsuna said.

A tiny foot planted itself in the back of his skull. "My training is not stupid, Dame-Tsuna," Reborn said.

"How do you even know about that nickname?" Tsuna grumbled.

"I know everything," Reborn lied blatantly.

~.~.~

Waking up from his eight years as a human popsicle, after a week in the infirmary, Xanxus introduced himself by kicking down the door to Tsuna's sort of office and shooting up several expensive gifts on display.

Tsuna introduced himself by replacing all the alcohol, in the mansion and the surrounding towns, with green tea.

(Except, it turned out, Nono's private brandy stash. Xanxus lasted an impressive three days before withdrawal overcame pride and father issues.)

It was the start of a beautiful... something.

~.~.~

Actually, that phrase could be used for the entire induction of the Tenth Generation. It was certainly a... thing.

~.~.~

The mafia world protested, of course. Loudly, at first. Naito enthusiastically suggested robots, Mukuro suggested mass murder. Hibari didn't bother suggesting anything and just went missing for three weeks. Well, "missing," while mafia family after mafia family were suddenly beaten down brutally.

Tsuna sighed and sent medical supplies and fruit baskets.

After that, the mafia protested much more quietly and subtly. Hayato suggested substituting the traditional snacks and cookies with his sister's Poison Cooking, which was probably his version of subtle. Takeshi and Ryohei jointly suggested an inter-family sports competition, to build goodwill and a healthy(ier) spirit of competition.

Tsuna sighed and went with it. He politely suggested just that to every mafia boss he met with. What they laughed, he continued to smile and chuckled along, until they trailed off uneasily. When they told him he was being a fool, Tsuna agreed that it sounded very entertaining. When they tried to refuse, he noted that of course it was outside their area of expertise and it would have been unfairly tipped in Vongola's favor.

In other words, of course they would have lost. If they had done it. Which they weren't going to. Because they were scared.

That was the dirtiest, most foul-filled sports competition ever. Vongola still won. Tsuna politely implied that this was a forgone conclusion that would be repeated no matter how many times the others tried.

It became a yearly tradition. The mafia Olympics, as it were. (No one even noticed when Tsuna made it a charity event, a few years down the road.)

The beginning of a new era of cooperation and civilized backstabbing.

~.~.~

Daemon tried to protest too. But mostly, he just complained bitterly about the similarities.

"Did you father a child or did you clone yourself?" he bemoaned to the wide blue sky. "Isn't there a limit to family resemblance? Not just in looks, but also that terrible personality! Those stupid vigilante tendencies! That detestable weakness!"

Tsuna let him rant for a while, and then tased him. Incidentally, tasers worked on ghosts, as they found out. The triumph of Science was all but complete.

(It would be complete in a few years, when Spanner and Shoichi got together with Verde - "_The_ Verde himself!" Shoichi raved. "He's a genius! A modern day Da Vinci! I can't believe I got to work with him!" - and made a magic jar that overcame even the apparent laws of the universe and the fable Arcobaleno system.)

~.~.~

_And then they lived happily ever after..._

~.~.~

Except...

Lambo suddenly sat bolt upright from where he had been sprawled over the couch, lazily eating the grapes that were fed to him by the robot maids (Naito's sweet sixteen present to Tsuna, after much nagging about finding peaceful uses for Spanner's creations; never mind that each robot maid had more firepower than a conventional tank).

"Oh shit," he said.

"Language, Lambo," Tsuna scolded absentmindedly, still engrossed in a report from their German branch. He couldn't help sighing a little. True, after a while, everyone learned to couch all their reports in terms of "I was fighting to protect ..." - but "my macho pride" was not a worthwhile object of protection. Neither was "the honor of the Fatherland." Weren't they all Vongola in the first place? Vongola was practically a nation in itself - or at least a people.

It was still, of course, better than Mukuro and that one report about "protecting the rights of owls everywhere to spread their wings and fly to the moon." Tsuna suspected that he had been still drunk when he wrote it. Either that, or he had been hung over and trying to make Tsuna experience an equally painful headache.

"I forgot about Byakuran," Lambo continued, in a stunned, horrified tone.

Tsuna looked up. "..." he said.

~.~.~


End file.
